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THE CROSS OR THE POUND— WHICH ? 



TALKS OF A TRAVKlylvBR SERIES. 



IN PRKSS. 

BI,ESS OR BI.IGHT, WHICH ? A Talk on Com- 
parative Consistency, Occidental and Oriental, 
with application to Mohammed and Moham- 
medanism in Africa, Asia Minor, Turkey, Persia, 
Central Asia, Afghanistan, India, Java, China and 
Siberia. Pen and Ink Sketches by Irving Ward. 
8vo, paper, 50 cents. 

IN TYPE. 

THE TYRANNY OF TRADITION. A Talk on 
Relative Ostracism, with application to the 
Russians aud the Russian-Greek Church. Pen 
and Ink Sketches by Irving Ward. 8vo, paper, 
50 cents. 

IN PREPARATION. 

Uniform with the above. Talks bearing upon Budd- 
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cianism — China. 



The American Nevi's Co., Publisher's Agents, 
Ntnv York. 



TALKS OF A TRAVELLER SERIES. 



THE CROSS 
25 THE POUND. 
WHICH? 



A TALK ON THE MODERNIZATION OF CIVILIZATION IN INDIA 

WITH APPLICATION TO THE HINDU AND HINDUISM. 

PEN AND INK SKETCHES BY IRVING WARD. 



/BY 

MAJOR PANGBORN. 



THE AMERICAN NEWS COMPANY, 

PUBLISHER'S AGENTS, 

NEW YORK. 

1900. 




TWO COPIES iF<HCElV£L3, 

Library of C^u^riiBik 
Register of Copyright* 






Copyright, 1900, 

BY 

J. G. PANGBORN. 



57614 



PRKSS OF H, Iv. Washburn & Co. 

BALTIMORE, MD., U. S. A. 






PREFATORY. 

Strayed or stolen ! Whether the one or the 
other, primarily, mattered not. The horse was 
gone, and the thing to do was to find him. 

The owner searched and had men to search, but 
in vain. The whereabouts of the missing anim.al 
remained a mystery. 

Finally there came the half-witted boy, the butt 
of the jibes and pranks of his more favored play- 
mates, the semi-idiotic creature which so many 
towns number among their public characters, and, 
accosting the despairing horseman, said : 

" Say, Mister, I've found your horse ! " 

" Go way," was the impatient rejoinder. '' How 
could a fool like you find him when all the men 
about the place couldn't ? " 

" I don't care, I done it all the same." 

" How and where, then ? " 



Vlll PREFATORY. 

"Well, Mister, I'll just tell you. You see, I 
went down to the lot where the horse skipped from, 
stood 'round, and thinks I to myself, now where 
would I go if I was a horse ; and I went there and 
found him." 

A clever young minister recently told this in my 
hearing to illustrate the truth he was trying to 
drive home, that to understand people radically 
differing from yourself, you must view them from 
their standpoint ; not from your own. In other 
words, "put yourself in his place." 

The story so admirably fits the purpose of my talk 
which follows these introductory remarks that, new 
or old, as it may be, I appropriate it with thanks to 
the author for so graphically presenting a truth, 
without the recognition of which there can be no 
adequate comprehension of humanity outside of 
the narrow environment which circumscribes 
individuality. 

The object which carried me around and through 
the world, so to speak, was the study of its railway 
and transportation systems. Investigation on re- 



PREFATORY. IX 

ligious lines had no place in the original plan. 

It was speedily developed, however, that to nn- 
derstand the earth's people and their ways, there 
had to be a comprehension of their religion, which, 
particularly in the East, and Far East, influences 
practically every action. 

Putting yourself in the other fellow's place, and 
looking at things as he does, leads to numberless 
surprises. Very many of his doings are discovered 
to be as your own, it being the manner of practice, 
and not the basic principle which differs. 

While agreeing with Cowper that : "To follow 
foolish precedents and wink with both our eyes is 
easier than to think," there is, I believe, a growing 
tendency to depart somewhat from the old rule of 
praising everything at home and condemning all 
things abroad. 

No attempt is made to pose as an authority on 
religion, either as relating to my own people or 
those of other lands. The preparation of a text or 
a reference book was furthest from my thought at 
inception and remained so. 



PREFATORY. 



As a layman only, are my observations to be con- 
sidered, responsibility beginning and ending with 
myself. 



DAVE AND HIS KIND. 

My servitor, next in rank to Jacob — attendants 
are so cheaply secured and as a rule so good in India 
one grows luxurious — was Devandas something or 
other, whom, for short, I called Dave. He was a 
Hindu, and at first I thought him rather stupid. 
In personal appearance and general demeanor Dave 
did not compare at all favorably with Jacob, and 
my inclination was to demur at the latter's choice 
of his principal assistant. Dave, while measuring 
fully six feet when stretched at full length on the 
ground — contrary to the common habit, he did not 
curl up, but slept as rigidly and straight as an 
arrow — when on his feet appeared of indefinite 
stature. Indeed, there was a vagueness and a vapory 
sort of an atmosphere enveloping him which always 
led me to think of his running up a bush or tree 



12 DAVE AND HIS KIND. 

and disappearing in thin air, as the juggling fakirs 
have the reputation of causing to be done. At 
times there was an uncanniness about him, a noise- 
less gliding, rather than muscle moving action, and 
a sudden coming from seemingly nowhere which 
puzzled me. Yet Dave was a good and faithful 
servant and the quickest thing on two feet I ever 
encountered. His suppleness was extraordinary, 
and a remarkable feature distinguishing his repose 
was its general indicativeness of stolid indolence. 
His eyes had a dull and vacant expression, his small 
head surmounted and bound about with a large 
turban, looked top heavy, and his body, with the 
straight hanging arms falling beside the straightly 
pendent legs, suggested a bunch of brown tooth 
picks. Speak, and like a flash of lightning came 
the change which transformed him into a tiger-like 
activity. Tell him the wish to consummate and 
the consummation was accomplished with a rapidity 
which in the tropical languor made you positively 
tired. It was altogether too much exertion to play 
dynamo to such an electrical current, and I used to 



DAVE AND HIS KIND. 1 3 

switch it off and on to Jacob who was my general 
accumulator and distributor as well. I came to 
know Jacob in a week, but it was three months 
before I could get beyond Dave's brown crust, so to- 
speak. As so natural to the Hindu who has been 
"civilized," that is, had the opportunity through 
being thrown with Europeans to know the meaning 
of the term in India, Dave was everything to every, 
body. Ready at a change in the tone of voice to 
acquiesce or waver ; anxious to impress that the 
thing in contemplation was the thing to do, or 
otherwise, as appeared the more likely to be the 
real wish, and in nothing go contrariwise to the 
pleasure of those he was serving. 

It is this in him which I imagine has been largely 
responsible for the reflections made upon the Hindu's 
character for truth telling, or rather for not telling it. 
I have frequently been asked if I found the Hindu a 
natural born liar, as he is so widely thought to be 
through the representations made of his tendency 
to the afHrniative, entirely independent of consist- 
ency with previous negative. I can not say that I 



14 DAVE x\ND HIS KIND. 

discovered congenital causes for a greater average of 
prevarication among them than their fellows in 
Christian countries, although I must confess to 
noting an absence of the art of lying in India so 
marked in Europe and at home. The trouble with 
the Hindu is in his inability to distinguish between 
" white " and other lies, between the equivocations 
and inventions which European civilization has 
taught him are right and proper, and those which 
are reprehensible. He has not become versed in 
the clever distinctions of commercial, political, social 
and every-day life discriminative of Christian lands, 
and when he does, I fancy there will be scarcely if 
any remark made as to his perversion of fact. 

The Earl of Elgin, who was Viceroy when I was 
in India, related to me an incident going to show the 
adaptability of the Hindu to circumstances and his 
alertness in turning a sharp corner, when "apparently 
caught in a lie. It was a native prince who had, at 
a previous audience with the Viceroy, strenuously 
promised he would do as he had been advised was 
the wish of the government. Going home, he did 



DAVK AND HIS KIND. 1 5 

exactly the reverse and was recalled to Calcutta to 
explain. Finding tliere was no way out of it, and 
assuming his proudest mien, he said to his lordship : 
" You think I am the slave of my word ; not so, my 
word is my slave." 

Elphinstone, the historian, declares " lying among 
the Hindu is most common in people connected with 
the government, a class which spreads far in India." 
Other authorities likewise attribute the tendency to 
falsehood to the influence of the methods introduced 
by Europeans, and the concensus of opinion war- 
rants the belief that whatever may be the Hindu's 
weakness morally it has largely expanded since 
the change in his estate. 

The Hindu, as he appears on the surface to the 
resident European, is a creature for whom the latter 
has no use save as he may cater to his wants and 
remain perfectly submissive to his exactions. But 
sometimes the Hindu is a very different creature, as 
you discover when you fathom him, and I have not 
often more thoroughly miscalculated a man at the 
start than I did Dave. In the first place, let me say 




1 6 DAVE AND HIS KIND. 

that his true character, in so far as it related to his 
disposition and man nature, if I may so put it, was 
not one to hold up as a model for the young, or for 
that matter, present as a commendable type to those 
of any age. He was undeniably malevolent, artfully 
vindictive and Machiavelian in his hatred of those 
who had brought his people to what they had become 
in his eyes, mere puppets. He would not have 
shed a drop of blood, but, judging the common foe 
with a perception which at first amazed me, his 
vengeance would have taken the form of wreaking 
most calculated to insure indescribable anguish — 
the purely mental and pitilessly prolonged. For 
like he would repay like. There appeared no sense 
of personal injury in the inexhaustible depth of his 
animosity. In his gloating over that which is not 
dwelt upon in publications or referred to in mis- 
sionary letters of European life in India, but which 
the native servants see and become perfectly familiar 
with, the crowning satisfaction found in the vices 
and consequent degredation was that the Christians 
were themselves down to the level they would drag 



DAVE AND HIS KIND. 1 7 

the Hindu. I say Christians only descriptively as 
it were ; to the Hindu the term signifies nothing. 
The Europeans called Hottentots would be the 
same to him. The special religion has no particu- 
lar bearing ; it is the conduct of those regarded as 
representative of it which affects, and it is not that 
the Englishman is a Christian that comparisons are 
drawn between principle and practice, but because 
they are made possible at all. It happens Chris- 
tianity suffers, and in truth it should also be made 
plain that being an alien religion of which these 
people have no knowledge beyond that conveyed 
through the example of those professing it, the im- 
mutability of the situation is unchangeable. It is 
easy, or comparatively so, to pull down, but to build 
up, ah ! there is the rub. 



.fo?. 



II. 

THE INDIA OF THE INDIANS. 

The ball of the thumb, figuratively, on the 
Twentieth Century B. C. and the tip of the little 
finger, in the same way, on the Twentieth Cen- 
tury A. D., the span of man's hand thus made 
marks Hinduism past and present. 

Almost four thousand years ! But six thousand 
are accredited to the world, and the Deluge is 
figured to have been in the Twenty-fourth Century 
B. C. Children born now may live to witness the 
fortieth centennial of Noah, and a couple of years 
later that of good old Father Abraham. 

As long before Christ as we are after him, or 
as the Jew antedates his origin from the days of 
the great Patriarch, so the Hindu traces his line- 
age back to where time's cobwebs become so 
intermingled as to be impenetrable. The same 




THE INDIA OF THE INDIANS. 1 9 

calculations and reasoning establishing the theory 
as to the cradle of the one race applies with corre- 
sponding significance to the other. There being 
no possible manner of proving either, both may be 
regarded as approximately correct, and to all 
intents and purposes sufficing as starting points. 
Let me assure my Jewish friends, of whom I have 
many, that no thought of questioning the cred- 
ibility of the historical descent which continues to 
nationalize them in the face of disintegrating in- 
fluences more powerful than others succumbed to 
ages ago, impels the observation indulged in. It is 
also fair I should say to my own race, that what- 
ever may be the seeming doubts implied as to the 
genuineness of records, my remarks can only be 
construed into reflections where their meaning is 
perverted. 

Somebody has said that a man cannot be at the 
same time a good controversialist and a good his- 
torian. I make no claim to be either, or anything 
save the average every day man speaking of things 
as they appear when observation stimulates interest. 



20 THE INDIA OI^ THE INDIANS. 

Scientists, like doctors, disagree, but generally 
the lack of unity on the part of the latter is the 
more serious. It has much disturbed the pros, as it 
also has the cons, in religious chronology that the 
Scotch verdict of ' not proven ' has so often been the 
resultant of protracted effort to substantiate data 
on the basis conclusive of hypotheses advanced. 
However, there is a counterbalancing in the alter- 
nating of the weight of argument, for and against, 
and doubtless as long as the earth exists differences 
will be maintained, which will have the merit of 
keeping alive the main and incidental questions, 
themselves justifying the exertion of master minds 
to eternity. 

There is no more fair and conscientious man 
among the really great students of the world than 
Professor Max Miiller, of Cambridge, Teuton by 
birth, Saxon by adoption. Trained in the untiring 
minuteness of investigation and microscopic deduc- 
tions of the German, for him to acknowledge the 
possibility of erroneous assumptions is encouraging 
to the layman who feels such must be the case, but 



THE INDIA OF THE INDIANS. 21 

is not in position to prove it. " This may seem 
very wrong," remarks the distinguished scholar, 
"and very unscientific to the scientific. But it 
cannot be helped. It is the nature of ancient 
thought and ancient language to be unscientific, 
and we must learn to master it as well as we can 
instead of finding fault with it and complaining 
that our forefathers did not reason exactly as we 
do." 

In this view of the situation one can approach 
the consideration of Hinduism in all its immensity 
of perplexity, and continuity of complexity, with 
the assurance the hearer will himself recognize that 
the people spoken of are not as he, having naught 
in common in inheritance, association or feeling. 
Nevertheless, this is not exactly true in the abstract 
if it is in principle. When the Englishman, as he 
is so prone to do, contemptuously refers to the 
the Hindu as a "nigger" he is, in a certain sense, 
so designating himself, for if the one is such, so as 
truly is the other. The two are Aryans by descent, 
and likewise are our Teutonic, Celtic, Grecian and 




33 THE INDIA OF THE INDIANS. 

other brethren too numerous to mention. The 
generally ascribed meaning of the generic term is 
" noble blood," which appears to afford considerable 
satisfaction to European historians and writers, as 
there is scarcely one who has not coupled the 
definition with the appellative. 

The Hindu being an Aryan, and one of us, is of 
course of "noble blood," but there would be sur- 
prise to hear his European brother in India so 
address him, not even the fellowship in Christ, 
— which is in books — being in practice there, Protes- 
tant missionaries themselves drawing the line at 
preaching it. 

" If I were to look over the whole world," writes 
Miiller, "to find out a country most richly endowed 
with all the wealth, power and beauty that nature 
can bestow — in some parts a very Paradise on earth 
— I should point to India. If I were asked under 
what sky the human mind has most fully developed 
some of its choicest gifts, has most deeply pondered 
on the great problems of life, and has found the 
solution of some of them which 'well deserve the 



THK INDIA OF THE INDIANS. 23 

attention even of those who have studied Plato and 
Kant, I should point out India. 

And if I v/ere to ask myself from what literature 
we here in Europe, we v/ho have been nurtured 
almost exclusivel}^ on the thoughts of Greeks and 
Romans, and of one Semitic race — the Jewish — 
may draw that corrective which is most wanted 
in order to make our inner life more perfect ; 
more comprehensive ; more universal ; in fact, 
more truly human, a life not for this life only, 
but for a transfigured and eternal life, again I 
should point to India. I am thinking chiefly 
of India such as it was a • thousand, two thou- 
sand, and it may be three thousand years ago. 
India of the village commune, the true India of 
the Indians. 

Aye, the India of to-day, also, if only you know 
where to look for it, is full of problems the solution 
of which concerns us all, even us in this Europe 
of the Nineteenth Century." 

Not very much in the tone of this harmonizing 
with that generally marking the missionary com- 



24 "THE INDIA OF THK INDIANS. 

munications read in cliiircli meetings and made the 
basis of appeals for the support of missions 

"From Greenland's icy mountains 
To India's coral strand." 

Now and then, however, a missionary gets out of 
tune, as it were, and his strains fall upon ears 
startled for the time being, if no longer, that such 
could arise from the very source whence the familiar 
had origin. Missionaries are mortal, and as so many 
of us can see no farther than the end of the nose, 
and there only what the narrowness of mind has 
prepared for sight. I am reminded of an old Hindu 
injunction : " Say what is true and say what is 
pleasant, but do not say what is true and unpleas- 
ant, nor what is pleasant and not true." One gets 
a bit out of patience when knowing, so much he is 
obliged to hear through the inability of the pew to 
talk back to the pulpit, is purely ex parte. It is 
not for a moment claimed to be consciously and 
designedly so, but from habit and the natural desire 
to be effective both in exciting sympathy for co- 
workers and in swellino- contributions to sustain 



THK INDIA OF THK INDIANS. 25 

them, special pleading is carried to the extreme 
limit. Speaking of the foundation for this, Dr. 
Rowe, the American missionary so long resident in 
the Empire, says : " The impression left on the 
mind is that India is a country where women are 
caged up like parrots, where widows are burned 
alive and children are hung up in baskets to be 
eaten by birds or thrown into the Ganges to be 
eaten by crocodiles ; that it is inhabited chiefly by 
voluptuous native princes, self-torturing religious 
devotees, powwowing Brahman priests, jewel- 
bedecked dancing girls and ferocious Bengal 
tigers." " The children of America," he continues, 
" know more about the burning of widows and the 
drowning of infants, about Thuggism and the 
bloody goddess Kali than do the fathers of any 
ordinary Hindu village." " Further," says the good 
Doctor, "it is utterly unfair to say the Hindus do 
not know a true God, and to deny them in toto a 
knowledge of the true God is unjust and brings no 
good either to the Christian or to the Hindu." 




III. 



THE HINDU SCRIPTURES. 

The Rig- Veda (Knowledge of Praise), is to tlie 
Hindu wliat the Old Testament is to the Jew, and 
with the books which followed it becomes to him 
as the Bible, as a v/hole, to the Christian. The Jew 
has his Talmud, the Christian the Gospels and the 
Hindu the Brahmanas (appendices to knowledge), 
the Upanishads (explanatory), Smviti (traditions), 
Bhaktisastras (mythological tales) and Manu (book 
of morals and jurisprudence). 

The period of the composition or compilation of 
the Rig- Veda, which by the way is in blank verse 
and in the form of hymns rather than in the narra- 
tive, was, it is believed, contemporaneous v/ith that 
of the Pentateuch or first five books of the Scrip- 
tures ; in other words, the time of Moses and the 
reign of the Pharaoh of the Exodus. 



THE HINDU SCRIPTURES. 27 

As there are differences among scholars and 
scientists as to the Hindu dates, so there are in 
regard to those of the Jew. Until within a com- 
paratively few years a pronounced sensitiveness 
prevailed among biblical students against conceding 
paralleling events to those in our scriptural history. 
This extending to the learned in ancient languages, 
their general research was long characterized by a 
similar disinclination to reach deductions offering- 
opportunities for what is now termed the study of 
comparative religions. Indeed, it has only been a 
few years that the word religion, in the sense the 
Christian uses it, has been acknowledged to have 
any application whatever in other directions ; 
heathenism, being the indiscriminate designation 
when referring to beliefs aside from our own. This 
assumption was practically universal, and the main- 
taining of the indefiniteness of things generally 
was regarded as the strengthening of faith. 

The hot house period in the propagation of Protes- 
tantism would, however, appear to be passing away 
when the eminent and reverend secretary of one 



28 THE HINDU SCRIPTURES. 

of its most influential Mission boards speaks of the 
" Interesting proofs furnished of the freedom with 
which the Spirit of God works upon the hearts of 
men and the great variety of means and agencies 
which He employs — those beyond the pale of the 
Christian church and even beyond the knowledge 
of the historical church." And further, in v/ords 
of warning he says : " The missionary is far too 
apt to have exalted notions of his own superiority 
coupled with a feeling of condescending pity for 
men who have perhaps pondered the deeper things 
of the universe far more than he." 

Among the scholars who have devoted their lives 
to delving into antiquity, and mastering languages 
dead so long even the dust has almost disappeared 
from where once they were, there is appearing the 
breadth of spirit which is enabling us to know how 
in the past, man spake to his Maker and his Maker 
spake to man. Occasionally these savants get 
testy as to their own individualization of trans- 
lations, claiming them as though the substance 
were personal property and not to be used without 



THE HINDU SCRIPTURES. 29 

formal permission. The truth is, much of the 
deciphering- and construction is as the individual 
views it ought to be, whether exactly in line with 
such prejudication or not. A freedom is taken with 
other religions in student research, quite in contrast 
with the adherence to uniformity maintained as to 
our own. This, notwithstanding the situation, is 
relatively the same as it must perforce be when 
the period of the investigation is parallel. In one 
instance the fact of the handing down of the 
record by memory is made as apparent as can be 
expressed in language, while in the other manu- 
scripts and books are talked of in connection with 
periods antedating all knowledge of writing by a 
thousand years. Not perhaps that the impression 
is justified by the direct statement, but it is by 
implication. No doubt whatever is cast upon the 
accuracy of the scholastic work in the one 
direction where an individual to claim as his 
especial own any translation would be considered 
sacriligious, whereas under similar conditions in 
other directions translations of like import are 



30 THE HINDU SCRIPTURES. 

unhesitatingly so claimed. It will be said in pal- 
liation of this procedure that the basic language 
being different, and more known of the one than 
the other, the conditions are not alike, but while 
it may be a greater number are familiar with the 
one than with the other, it is not true the advan- 
tage of age and development are on the side of 
that of which we assume to have no doubt 
whatever. 

The Hindu records are the oldest known to the 
world. While the date of the earliest of the Vedic 
hymns is generally conceded to be beyond the 
twelfth or thirteenth century before Christ, only 
Miiller and one or two other authorities not impreg- 
nated with the old time aversion to acknowledging 
anything parallel with or antedating the Scriptures, 
place it in the fifteenth century, or, as has hitherto 
been said, contemporaneous with Moses. Most of 
them, nevertheless, confess the evidence is irrefut- 
able that there must have been centuries of growth 
and development preceding the composition, the 
language being, as Bettany says, "fixed, complex 



THE HINDU SCRIPTURES. 3 1 

and full grown." Two thousand years before Christ, 
is coining to be accepted as the probable inception 
of Hinduism and about the period when the 
Hindus found the lodgment in India which 
they have maintained through the unrolling of 
the ages. There are evidences, in such as has 
come down to us from Moses of his familiarity 
with the products of India and the commercial 
intercourse between India, the Persian Gulf, the 
Red Sea and the Mediterranean was not, it is 
believed, interrupted even at the time when the 
Book of Kings is held to have been written. It 
has been established beyond question that in 
Solomon's time there were channels of commercial 
communication open between India, Syria and 
Palestine. 

To enter upon an exhaustive amplification of 
the Rig- Veda and its appendages is not my 
intention. Not competent to do it scientifically, 
there is no desire to essay it superficially merely 
because of its being the basis of a religion not my 
own and therefore fitting food for speculative 



32 THE HINDU SCRIPTURES. 

digestion. The custom of comparing the extremes 
of alien religions with the highest principles of 
our own religion, the pointing out of the incon- 
sistencies of the practice in the one instance and 
ignoring the rule as to exemplification in the other, 
is common enough to leave no dearth of examples 
of this nature. My hope is to interest and prove 
suggestive, if I can, in showing the effect of his 
religious belief upon the Hindu — demonstrated in 
his life as one notes it in coming in direct contact 
with him. Naturally this will lead to an acquaint- 
ance with the operation of the Vedic books if not 
to a technical, doctrinal, or dogmatical conception 
of them. 



IV. 

HE MAKES SO MANY OF THEM. 

The contemplation of tlie niasses of humanity is 
the more deeply impressive when there is the larger 
recognition of the preponderence of those we classify 
under the head of common. 

It was Lincoln, if I remember aright, who re- 
marked, " the good Ivord must love common people, 
He makes so many of them." 

lyinked w4th the average paucity of means of 
the lowly is the relative meagreness of knowledge, 
and it is for the generally impecunious and the 
more or less ignorant that the scholastic and the 
affluent make religion. Odd, when you think of it. 
Those who know nothing of the heart of hearts, so 
to speak, of the bulk of the earth's people, interpret 
and define their spiritual necessities, their longings 
and their hope of salvation — in short, their religion. 




34 HE MAKEvS SO MANY OF THEM. 

Enunciate doctrines, promulgate dogmas, create 
creeds, establish regulations and decree formulas 
which the more learned and rich we are, we our- 
selves usually pay the less heed to. Yet we declare, 
those with whom we actually have no fraterniza- 
tion will be eternally damned if the}' do not live and 
die by the rules honored by us more in the breach 
than in the observance. 

"Strained!" you say? Adapt something ap- 
proximately like it to India and if, after you have 
associated in connection your notion of Christian 
civilization, you find your calculations correct, you 
will have kept your bearings where I went hope- 
lessly adrift. 

It will be conceded, the test of a religious belief 
is the evidence of it, and in no other relation of life 
is the inference of example regarded as more conclu- 
sive. The professing of a faith is deemed indicative 
of a recognition of the spiritual, and the view of 
existence from such standpoint as to preclude 
much in action characterizing the purely worldly. 

Everything having to do with the Hindu, to the 



HK MAKES SO MANY OF THEM. 35 

smallest detail, lias a religious bearing, and lie 
naturally looks for something of corresponding 
nature being indicated in tlie Christian. A Hindu 
and therefore a believer, a European and hence a 
Christian, is his postulation ; a result which could 
not be otherwise, when every point of apposition to 
which he is brought is to emphasize the superiority 
of the dominating race. This, it is inculcated, is in 
consequence of the high civilization and exalted 
refinement following Christian influences ; and a 
nation so guided cannot be other than beneficent 
and refining. The Hindu knowing his people find 
reflex in him, and whatever may be his individu- 
ality, it enters into the contemplation of his race 
collectively, predicates as concerns others on the 
same principle he is predetermined by them. So 
the characteristics of those by whom he is ruled 
become the type of nationality ; yes, beyond this, 
for as the only exemplars of Christianity coming 
within his ken, by them he judges the whole. If 
the Christian faith is so far in advance of his own, 
so inestimably more enlightening, elevating and 



36 HE MAKES SO MANY OF THEM. 

purifying in its influence than liis possibl}^ can be, 
surely those who come from lands where for 
centuries the sway, he is told, has been supreme, 
must evidence it in every aspect of their lives. 
He acts precisely as would we under like circum- 
stances — deduces the worth of the tree from the 
fruit it bears. It does not follow his own tree 
yields any better. Although it might, in both 
instances, suggest the nature of the soil, and 
particularly the cultivation could be studied to 
an advantage. 



V. 



THE NATIVE AND HIS MASTERS. 



Dave was iconoclastic to a degree frequently 
startling to me, and I cannot say I was always 
easy in mind when I had him about me. He 
knew so much of the inner life of the larger 
centres of European activity, that more than once 
I became apprehensive of possible results, a fore 
inkling of which might involve me in a manner 
not altogether pleasant to contemplate. 

I was in India with letters of introduction and com- 
mendation from the Secretary of State, Lord Kim- 
berly, as well as from the Secretary of Colonies, the 
Earl of Ripon, and was, at the least, a semi-official 
guest of the Indian government. Every possible at- 
tention was shown me, every courtesy extended, and 
in governmental, as in private and social circles, I 




38 TPIE NATIVE AND HIS MASTERS. 

was received with all honors bestowed when one's 
credentials are of the highest. 

Jnst here it should be said that if to the 
unthinking, and possibly to others, what may be 
said in so plainly discussing things as they are in 
India, there appears at the first blush, a want of 
appreciation of the exceeding kindness everywhere 
received— a harsh return for a genial reception — 
strictly, as a matter of fact, my presenting existing 
conditions as strongly as within my power, could 
not exceed the directnCvSS and unequivocal way 
they were put to me by the subjects of her Majesty 
themselves. 

When the Englishman is frank he is so to the 
extreme, and nowhere within the British domain 
is this more truly distinctive than in the Colonies. 
Proverbially a critic, and at home disposed to 
saying his say, away from home the tendency is 
given even freer ^^ein, and to this day I frequently 
look back upon the presentation of the general 
situation by Englishmen long resident in India, 
as though it were a dream. " But," 3'ou will say. 



THE NATIVE AND HIS MASTERS. 39 

''croakers, growlers, the discontented and the dis- 
gruntled are found everywhere." True, but not 
as a rule in high places and so widely intermingled 
with the whole, as to make it impossible to draw 
the line between the contented and the discontented, 
the optimist and the pessimist. I met with natives 
largely, as also with foreigners, so distinguishing 
those to the manor born and those not so, and they 
were pretty much all painted with the same brush. 
What struck me with peculiar force was the 
general acknowledgment of the serious aspect of 
things as regarded the future in its possible 
applicability to the natives. I do not forget the 
night, extending long into the morning hours, 
spent with one of the most distinguished of the 
incumbents of the provincial gubernatorial chairs. 
Alone, on the porch of the Government house we 
sat, he the talker and I the listener, and the Indian 
outlook has ever since been colored for me by that 
interview. It was in the line with much which 
before had been intimated to me by those 
thoroughly familiar with affairs within the 



40 THE NATIVE AND HIS MASTERS. 

Empire, but never had the situation been so 
succintly and powerfully detailed or so logically 
summed up. There was no secresy enjoined or 
confidential intercourse intimated as understood. 
To the contrary, the disposition was manifested 
that there should be a recognition of the serious- 
ness of things, which if happily averted would 
entail no other loss than the time given to the 
consideration itself, however, recompensed by the 
training in forecasting which insures true states- 
manship. 

I remember, in connection with this talk with one 
of the confessedly largest men intellectually, ever 
holding office in the Empire, writing its substance 
to a well known publication here at home with 
which pleasant relations were sustained ; and 
for my pains advised to confine myself to the 
descriptive and not bother with the political, 
which, it was claimed, was generally the product 
of personal interestedness if given out for printing. 
In passing, permit me to remark, the famine was of 
the predictions made that night, and is not the 



THE NATIVE AND HIS MASTERS. 4 1 

only one of those that have since been demon- 
strated in the transpiring, or are foreshadowed. 

It is only when forced to a comprehension of 
the inevitable, the Englishman will give a thought 
to the physical welfare of the native, as a whole. 
As Dr. Wilkins, whose extended sojourn in 
India enables him to speak whereof he knows — 
sa3^s : '' It is perfectly true, that Englishmen 
through ignorant indifference or selfishness, will 
order their native servants to do that which they 
would rather starve than do ; and these nominal 
Christian masters will beat a servant for not doing 
what he believes his religion positively forbids." 
And Dr. Rowe : "The Englishman receives the 
outer marks of respect from the natives with the 
same equanimity as he does the light and heat of 
the sun, and with as little appreciation. It is 
only when they are indifferent to him that he 
takes any notice of them. Then he flies into a 
rage and feels himself deeply insulted." One 
of the unpleasant features of the American's 
visit to India is the cringing, cowering and 



42 



THE NATIVE AND HIS MASTERS. 



debasing self-humiliation of the low caste natives, 
upon sight of his white face and European clothes. 
It becomes painful as it continues, and in the 
impressions left upon the mind of the prostrating, 
doubled up and v/hipped-dog looking wretches, 
not daring to raise head or eye as you pass by, 
there is an estimation formed of them as a race, 
which by right should be visited upon their 
masters. This is especially true in Southern and 
and Central India, where the European domination 
has been the longest. In the farther north, and 
hill country generally, the natives remain upright 
when in the presence of Europeans and act like 
men, not as beaten curs. Generally speaking, they 
go about their business offering no recognition 
to strangers, except in response to the initiative 
taken by the latter. 






*ts^ 



VI. 



AS THE NATIVE SEES. 



Dave had disquieted me with the many things 
he, in his insidious way, had managed to cause me 
to comprehend. I finally made him and his pecu- 
liarities the subject of a confidential talk with an 
official, whose residence had been of unusual con- 
tinuity in a climate so trying, and whose position 
close to the throne, as it were, afforded him every 
opportunity of knowing what was going on in 
about every one of the many channels, all of which 
have, as had the roads of Roman tradition, a common 
center. Thinking I had something to communi- 
cate which would interest him, and it may be, tend 
to his regarding as a reciprocating act of friendliness, 
I began on points of Dave's stories which, as they 
had solely to do with my own race, there was 
no hesitancy in detailing. The gist was the 






44 AS THE NATIVE SEES. 

apparent system of interchano-e of intelligence 
existing between native servants, the general pro- 
mnlgation of the happenings within the households 
where they were in service, and evidently considered 
by their masters, in so far as understanding such as 
passed within their observation, as so many blocks 
of wood. It was incredible to me that servant 
life could be so closely interwoven with that of 
master and mistress in directions where elsewhere 
the utmost care is supposed to be exercised to avoid 
confidences of the nature ; and I was going on to 
express myself freely as to Dave's disclosures being 
the rankest scandal for which I would certainly 
pack him off, when a hearty laugh caused me to 
stop and catch my breath. 

"My dear boy, don't worry yourself and don't 
discharge good David, or whatever is his name, if 
he be otherwise satisfactory. You are telling me 
nothing I haven't known for years or that everybody 
does not know, and I am surprised you have only 
now become aware of." 

Straightened up with a jerk, and hardly believing 



AS THE NATIVE SEES. 45 

I had heard ariglit, I looked my official friend in the 
eye, and there was the glance expressive of " 'tis true 
'tis pity, pity 'tis 'tis true." A bachelor and a man 
of the world, while condoning-, he at the same time 
regretted ; cynically indifferent in one. breath, in 
the next condemnatory, a mocking smile chasing 
away the severe lines of soberly set lips and then 
weariness of the topic and a change to another 
where morality could not become the burden. 
Dave, whose confidence I had set myself to winning, 
that in my pursuit of information as to the lower 
classes I might, through one of their own number, 
learn of their feelings, the comprehension of their 
religion, and the general aspect of life from their 
point of view, instead of showing me the lights 
and shadows of his people had thrown me up 
against the blackness of my own. His command 
of English was not extended, but made up in 
expression, what it lacked in fluency. That he 
was not of the stuff I had supposed — the ordinary 
servant, picked up at haphazard, as he seemingly 
was usually demonstrated — became more certain 



46 AS THK NxVnVE SEES. 

as my acquaintance with his nature enabled me to 
draw him out. Having been proven truthful in 
what he had said, my manifested confidence in him 
increased the freedom of his intercourse with me. 
From an official, whose duty was of the nature 
of a general police or detective supervision, I 
learned of the espionage of European life in the 
larger places, through the instrumentality of the 
native servants. This so conducted that the 
higher class Hindus, as well as Mohammedans, 
are made conversant with everything occurring. 
Humiliating as it will be deemed, the European 
authorities themselves frequently avail of this 
source for special information when suspicion may 
be aroused, or from any cause, scandalous connec- 
tions are to be threatened with exposure if not 
terminated. I was further assured that not only is 
the — what might be termed — native bureau of Euro- 
pean private affairs, advantaged of officially, but 
personally as well, and is not infrequently employed 
for divorce court ends. No especial centre of Euro- 
pean activity is intended as being thus outlined. 



AS THE NATIVE SEES. 47 

India society is an admixture, the analogy of 
which is hardly known elsewhere. Home life is the 
exception. Men very largely predominate, women 
generally cannot stand the enervating climate but 
for a comparatively brief period, and children 
have to be sent home at an early age for this and the 
additional necessit)- of educational facilities. Some 
women can remain for years, and do. The pace many 
of them keep up is a very swift one. Expenses are 
heavy and salaries of husbands often small. There 
are not numerous avenues into which those, other than 
of the official coterie^ may enter, and to live in India 
without excitement is, to those who must have it, a 
lingering death. Showy equipages on the fashion- 
able drives in the cool of the late afternoon and twi- 
light, lordly dinners commencing late and running 
into the wee snia' hours, elegant toilettes, choice 
wines — all which go to make up the life worth 
living from their standpoint — rcosts money in the 
Indian Empire as everywhere else, and come how- 
ever it must, it must come. 

Now you will know of whom I am talking and on 



48 AS THK NATIVE SEES. 

what the Hindu bases his comparisons between the 
practice and the precepts of Christianity. It is the 
most conspicuous outward evidence he has, and he 
knows the inwardness of its enticement. 

Tell him he is wrong to judge by this every-day 
exhibition, of the utter absence of Christian observ- 
ance in word or in deed and that, per conU^a^ he 
should base his opinion upon the stately functions 
of high officialdom, and the homes which are such 
in deed as well as in name ; and he will turn upon 
you and ask if you so judge him and his religion. 
He will say to you, and truthfully, that upon your 
own and not his interpretation of the Vedic books, 
you create the world wide impression existing that, 
at the best, they are unworthy of constituting the 
basis of a religious faith. He will emphasize your 
indignant resentment at the slightest evidence of 
his daring to attempt an argument even on Old 
Testament traditions ; and, with assuredly some 
grounds for his allegations of unfairness and per- 
version, insist that if the golden rule is really 
considered as other than a glittering bauble of 



AS THE NATIVE SEES." 49 

words, it should have some application in practice. 

This, in the way of a general contemplation ; his 
following it up specifically with the Christian rule 
in India, as the fountain head of that which he shows 
has come to pass, and is eventuating every day, is 
not calculated to increase your confidence in the 
correctness of tlie definition of civilization as set 
forth in Webster's Unabridged. 

You can pooh hoo him and what he says, 
remark that some people will be sensational and 
cannot help it, and fall back upon any thing 
occurring to you in the ready-made stock of 
clap trap about what Christianity has done for 
the colonies, but this does not alter the actual 
situation in the slightest. 

The Hindu's position is the tenable one, not 
yours ; and until there are tangible evidences that 
the Government and those who live by, through, 
and upon it, have Christian principles worthy of 
adhering to, he cannot be expected to believe in 
their being existent. 




VII. 
THE FORM VISIBLE. 

On the face of things the religion of the Hindu 
is one projecting the utmost difficulties of compre- 
hension upon the stranger, who, notwithstanding 
he has seen many images, elaborate ceremonies 
and ostentatious observances at home, is deeply 
impregnated with the conviction that anything 
and everything conformable elsewhere is idolatry, 
neither more nor less. 

In his own land there has come peace, a forget- 
fulness of the world, its trials, cares and tribulations, 
as well as of its show, excitement and dissipation, 
within the shadowed portals where from dimly out- 
lined recesses have shapes silently and suggestively 
merged into recognition, and the imagination, 
carried onward by the low and sweet strains of 
rnelody Vvhich seem to be the ether itself, has 



THE FORM VISIBLE. 51 

encircled with halos, heads, the composition of which 
the senses paused not to probe. Images of wood, 
stone or metal, either in full and perfectly rounded 
proportions, with color, jewels and every semblance 
of actuality in dress, drapery and feature ; or in bas 
relief, full length, half length or medallion. Per- 
chance memorial tablets, or exquisitely conceived 
glazing in memoriam, and from all sides of the 
sacred edifice there may come the light of day so 
permeating the realistic portrayals framed in the 
stately windows that hallowed forms come into life, 
as it were, through the illumined eyes which look 
so benignly down upon the worshipping throng. 

Denominations, dogmas or creeds draw no lines 
as to these, which, in the one contour or the other, 
are alike symbolical ; and the accessories in the 
arrangements for insuring the atmosphere most 
tending to enhance the general effect upon both the 
eye and the mind, are in keeping with the purpose 
in view, which is the oblivion of self in the sense 
of the forgetfulness of the worldly. This is the 
outward worship where civilization is the highest, 



52 THE FORM VISIBLE. 

where education is universal, culture widespread and 
refinement emulated. In it there is the undeniable 
inherency to a visible adoration and the association 
with the Divine Creator, of those in whom the 
reflex of His divinity has been made manifest. 
The objective may be apostle, saint, the man bene- 
factor or the woman benefactor, whatever the 
impulse to remembrance through defined form, the 
consecration of the edifice of which it may be a 
part, or to which it may be added, is the sanctifica- 
tion commanding veneration. 

" But this is not polytheism nor is it pantheism," 
you say, " and if the Hindus are not both polytheists 
and pantheists they are certainly one or the other, 
and we are neither." 

Well, it depends upon the point of view. You 
certainly would not rank the average Hindu with 
yourself in intellectuality, brain power, breadth of 
comprehension or generic perspicacity. Old as is 
his civilization, compared to which your ultra 
modern, is as' a babe in swaddling clothes, his still 
lacks the art w^hich more than auo^ht else has made 



THK FORM VISIBI.E. 53 

yours — that of printing. I do not mean to say he 
has not had the language with which to express 
himself, as this would be absurd in the light of the 
fact that Sanskrit is almost, if not quite, the most 
ancient known. Nor could the argument be ad- 
vanced that literature was not possessed when his 
antedates that of our own Scriptures in the original. 
Dissemination, the printing and distribution, the 
placing in every outstretched hand of the food for 
the brain, has developed us, and the w^ant of it left 
the Hindu in intellectual darkness. The gray 
matter is in him, as has been unequivocally demon- 
strated throughout the ages in the singularly acute 
and profoundly impressive philosophy which has 
made Hindu the synonym for depth of mentality. 
From the development of the few we may judge of 
the possibilities of the many were the opportunity 
general instead of exceptional. It was not, and 
scarcely one-half of one per cent, can read or write. 
The first form of language in the hieroglyphic of 
which we know anything, was the Egyptian, and it 
was pictorial. To me the pantheon of the Hindu, 



54 I'HE FORM VISIBI.E. 

peopled with its myriad forms which in one guise 
or the other present to the eye the visibility of the 
imaginary, there appears much of the play of the 
brain distinguishing the Egyptian when he sought 
expression visually as well as orally. 

Supposing we were without the daily newspapers, 
the weeklies, the monthlies, the magazines, the 
quarterlies and the books, w^hich in number have 
become almost as the grains of sand on the seashore, 
not speaking of the interminability of the subjects, 
multiplicity of style or trifling cost in comparison 
to their value. Imagine us, with all the super- 
abundance of brain we still claim despite the 
channels offering for its absorption, absolutely 
stranded in a complete inability to comprehend the 
meaning of a printed word, and wholly dependent 
upon the one in five hundred who could and would 
sit down and read to us. Would such rare occasion 
suffice to relieve the hunger for something more 
than the mere storing away in memory of the 
characterizations, associations and aspirations em- 
balmed in the beggarly range of literature to 



THK FORM VISIBLE. 55 

which even those who could recite it were restricted ? 

Under the great overhanging branches of hoary 
old trees, within the shade and beyond in the blazing 
sun, the radius from the common center being 
limited only by the penetration of the voice of the 
reader, there are throngs of Hindus oblivious of 
themselves and all the world in the enthrallment of 
the story so real to them its personages are before 
their very eyes. You come upon such gatherings 
not infrequently, and as you are impressed with the 
wrapt attention, the intense absorption and won- 
drous depth of feeling manifested, you appreciate 
how little these people really have and how great a 
use they make of it. So much that they fairly live 
in that which the bard recites, and at nightfall go 
home, illuminate and decorate their houses as though 
the victory won by their hero had been that very 
day and in their very presence. 

It is the one or the other of the Hindu epic poems 
— the Mahabharata or the Ramayana. The former 
is the lengthiest composition of the nature in ex- 
istence, being fourteen times greater than the Iliad. 




56 THK FORM VISIBLE. 

It dates from tlie fifth or sixth century B. C, and 
the Ramayana a century earlier, and of them Miiller 
says : ''In some respects they rival the Iliad and 
the Odyssey." Both poems relate primarily to 
Aryan conquests, the one to operations about Delhi 
and the other to those in the Oudh region. In the 
first named Krishna is the hero and in the second 
Rama, both of them human incarnations of Vishnu, 
the divine incarnation of Brahma — God. In temple, 
as in the open, these great semi-legends are read or 
recited, three to six months' time being required to 
complete either of them. For centuries — two 
thousand five hundred years — this, coupled with 
the reading or reciting of the Veda and its subsid- 
iary books, has been the uninterrupted practice 
until, as Miiller declares, " If every manuscript of 
the Veda were lost we should be able to secure the 
whole of it from the memory of the native students, 
who learn it by heart from the mouth of their 
teacher — never from a manuscript, still less from 
any printed edition." This is true of the entire 
range of the Hindu sacred literature. 



THE FORM VISIBLE. 57 

Hearing again and again the same thing, is it not 
natural that there should come at first an uncon- 
scionable figuration, and then an irresistible impulse 
to the fashioning in the form visible and character- 
istic? In a life so barren of that for which the 
connate craving of the brain for the spiritual leads 
to the seeking, the spiritualizing of such as secures 
the greater hold upon the mind is the sequence ; 
hence the reverence, as we speak of it in ourselves 
but denominate worship in others, for these creations 
of man, himself made in God's image. 

It is a hard matter to reconcile what is so dia- 
metrically opposite to our own conception, or to 
attempt with any degree of confidence to present an 
hypothesis, especially one of a religious complexion, 
which will for a moment be entertained as reason- 
able. Such as I have advanced is in support of 
thoughts purel}^ my ov/n, and the outcome of my 
consideration of the situation as a whole with all 
the light procurable in person or through others. 
Great as is Professor Miiller, he confesses to reach- 
ing lesults upon some occasions concededly un- 



58 THE FORM VIvSIBLK. 

scientific, and such mine will doubtless be regarded. 

Were I convinced the Hindu is other than, at 
heart as he has always been, strictly a Monotheist, 
a believer in the same God we believe in, I could 
not have come to regard him and his religion as I 
do. Elphinstone designated Hinduism a Mono- 
theism. Monier- Williams says " a large majority 
of the Hindus are believers in a personal God and 
are, therefore, Theists. To apply the term Panthe- 
ism to the religion generally is a great mistake and 
altogether misleading. All the most pronounced 
forms of it rest on the fundamental principles of 
God's Unity." "There is," says Wilkins, "no 
truth as an article of faith on which Hindus are 
more agreed than that 'God is one without a 
Second.' " Dr. John Muir, in summing up the 
tenets of the faith, says, " Yet all are held to form 
one," and Professor Mitchell remarks, " We may 
well hesitate before we call the relig.ion polythe- 
istic." 

Brahma is God to the Hindu in effect as He is to 
us, and I take little stock in the fine spun arguments 



THE FORM VISIBLE. 59 

going to prove that in the multiplication of images, 
the succession of incarnations and the increase of 
deifications, together with the widespread sway of 
superstition, there is a general getting away from 
the One and only Divine Creator. If this is so, 
then we must plead guilty of the self same tendency, 
for in proportion there is as much here, in the way 
of causes leading to such end, as there. 

Multiply exceeding twelve-fold the evidence seen 
here of the nature indicated — remembering in fair- 
ness the wide difference in intellectuality, culture 
and progress — and the basis of comparison, numeri- 
cally, becomes equal. Two hundred and fifty mil- 
lions of them, and vide the last census, twenty 
millions of us. They are practically all believers, 
only one of three of us is, according to the authority 
quoted, and judging by the church attendance, 
another and larger division should be made as 
between the active and the nominal. 

When religion comes to be recognized as directly 
emanating from God, and therefore beyond man's 
making, then, and only then, will the tinkering 



6o THE I^ORM VISIBI.E. 

with it cease. Meantime, the Hindu, like ourselves 
and those of other faiths, will go right on shaping 
things as believed to best meet the wants of man 
as man sees them. 

There is nothing very surprising in this, as with 
all the reasoning of my own I have succeeded in 
concentrating, in addition to what has been absorbed 
of that of others, no determination can be reached 
other than that man is in his religion about as in 
everything else. He knows, or thinks he does — 
which is the same thing — what is best for him, but 
the peculiar feature of the religion the Christian so 
decides his to be, is that it is about the only thing 
he has which he thinks everybody else ought to 
have. In affairs of the heart, business, the pursuit 
of wealth, the securing of worldly advantages, style, 
the possession of objects of art and what not, he is 
a protectionist ; in religion alone is he a free trader. 



VIII. 
AN OBJECT I.ESSON IN GODS. 

I cannot say Hinduism appeals to me. It would 
be strange if it did. To see on every side figures 
so grotesque, many of them in fact hideous — night- 
mares which, expecting to have left in bed, you are 
startled at meeting in broad day light. One cannot 
get away from them wherever he may go, and not 
until a Hindu friend who had been to the Chicago 
Exposition and was almost as familiar with New 
York, London, Paris and Berlin as with Bombay, 
brought me up standing, did I quite recover my 
equanimity when in godland. 

"You believe in your Bible, do you not?" said 
he. 

I certainly do, was my reply. 

"In all of it, without reserve?" 

Generally speaking, yes. 




62 AN OBJPXT LESSON IN GODS. 

" What do you intend to convey by the qualifica- 
tion, generally? " 

Well, til at in part it is figurative, or allegorical 
if you please, in that the lesson is taught in the 
moral to be drawn, or as the gnostic would put it, 
the substance is not to be taken in its literal, but in 
its suggestive sense. This intending to apply, in 
the main, to the Old Testament. 

" What aboiit Revelation ? " 

Included, I responded. 

"Supposing, then, that instead of the narrative 
of St. John being in words, or pictured, it were 
sculptured or, rather, modeled in wood or compo- 
sition, colored and decorated, say, as I have seen 
images in Christian churches in your country, w^ould 
you feel any less strange amidst the representations 
in tangible form of what you accept as symbolical 
of your faith, than you do among those typifying 
ours? Surely, if you believe in Revelation you 
must agree that we go no farther than do you in 
the imaginative attributes or, for that matter, in 
the indication of physical possessions." 



AN OBJECT LKSSON IN GODS. 63 

After this I looked upon three, four, six and 
seven headed gods, with arms and hands in even 
greater profusion, as well as viewed heads of horses, 
bulls and the like on human bodies, not to speak of 
an unusual assortment of eyes and other uniqueness, 
with a composure nothing could disturb. If, with 
all the advantages enjoyed, the opportunities vouch- 
safed me and the blessings these people of far away 
India had never known, I believed as they believed 
and they chose to shape in ponderable fonn what I 
was content to let remain in mind, it illy behooved 
me to ridicule or otherwise than to respect. 

It is not intended to leave the impression the 
Hindus have gone to the Revelation for subjects to 
portray. In their illustrations they have resorted 
to the Veda and other scriptural works as well as 
to their literature generally — all of it religious or 
semi-religious — the same as we would do were we 
to create a biblical pantheon in addition to the one 
we long ago commenced of heroes, statesmen, poli- 
ticians and public benefactors ; the latter, as a rule, 
being also perpetuated in popular recollection by 




64 AN OBJECT I.ESSON IN GODS. 

their names appended to th.e institutions they 
founded. 

As we take down or pick up the Bible and read 
it, the Hindu goes to his biblical repository — the 
visible representation of his imagination as to its 
embodiment. We have the printed page which 
tells us much ; he has the image and we cannot 
know what it is to him, any more than he can ap- 
preciate what we find between two covers. Had 
the Hindu his Bible, as we have ours, and testified 
to the reverence for it indicative of ours for the 
Holy Scriptures, it would at once be classified by us 
as another of his gods. Seeing him pray with his 
hands crossed upon it, noting him kiss it as a crusis 
of his truth telling, and in other manner evidence 
his solemn faith in the efficacy of its very binding, 
the proof of his worshipping it would be indubi- 
table. In fact, we do say of the "Granth," which 
is the Bible of the Sikh sect of Hindus, that they 
make an idol of it, through the holiness in which 
they regard it, the reverent care taken in preserving 
and keeping it from all profanation, — elaborate 



AN OBJECT I.KSSON IN GODS. 65 

ceremonies marking everything having to do with 
the sacred vohime. This is idolatry in the Hindu 
sect, whereas in the Christian sect similar observ- 
ance of cherished objects is denoted service. 

So generally have certain proverbial sayings 
come into use, as the more expressive way of con- 
veying comprehension, that they are heterogene- 
ously employed and eventuate in more or less mis- 
leading corollaries. For example, " comparisons 
are odious." They are by no means always so, but 
to the contrary the reverse, affording as they fre- 
quently do, incomparably the better means of 
gaining an understanding. Paralleling the afar off 
with that immediately at hand and hence most 
familiar, enables a realization obtainable in no 
other manner. This conceded, there can rightly 
be regarded no other impelling purpose than the 
desire to encompass a comprehension that compar- 
isons are instituted as the existing opportunities 
offer. And many do present themselves, the earth 
and the people on it being actuated in religion, as 
in pretty much everything else, by largely con- 



66 AN OBJECT LESSON IN GODS. 

forming natural tendencies. As has hitherto been 
remarked, it is the point of view which makes the 
difference in the aspect. 

Incidentally it should be stated that when we 
say or think of gods in connection with Hinduism, 
it is to follow custom rather than confine ourselves 
to fact. In the sense the application is made 
by us it means a duplication of God. In reality it 
does nothing of the sort. Gods are a character of 
arbitrary designation adopted by Christian transla- 
tors who would have them so whether or no. The 
correct interpretation of " Deva " which is the 
term used b}^ the Hindu, and found throughout his 
scriptural books, is " bright being," and hence " the 
gods," as we would have them, are to the Hindu 
shining lights of which it is to be hoped we our- 
selves have many. Miiller, the greatest of scholars 
in the dead languages, says : " We must never 
forget that what we call gods are not substantial, 
living, individual things of whom we can predicate 
this or that. " Deva," which we translate God, is 
nothing but an adjective expressive of quality." 



IX. 
THAT WHICH IS NEXT TO GODLINESS. 

In more respects than one is Hinduism strikingly 
suggestive of the sacredness in which the body is 
held as the temple of God, or if this is deemed too 
strong a way of putting it, the frame that is made 
in the image of the Creator. 

One not knowing the Hindu well would scarcely 
expect to find in him fastidiousness as to person and 
a delicacy approaching to daintiness in supplying 
the wants of the inner man. 

He is hardly awake in the morning before he is out 
of doors cleaning his teeth with a vigor betokening 
it no mere matter of form. It is a rigidly observed 
religious duty as it also is in conformity with his 
general conceptions of personal purification. To 
him it would be pollution to introduce anything in 
the mouth, made he knew not how or by whom, and 







68 THAT WHICH IS NKXT TO GODI^INESS. 

used before even by liimself. A twig of a tree, vine 
or busli, nature's tooth brUvSh, will only suffice him, 
and after the one use is immediately thrown away 
as an unclean thing. 

Next a given number of swallows of water are 
taken to insure internal purification, and finally, 
after these and accompanying ablutions are per- 
formed, the full bath is in order. During this the 
clothes worn the previous twenty-four hours are 
washed, and so placed as to be ready the next day 
when the turn of the fresh ones just donned will 
come for their cleansing. 

I used to think the Englishman the cleanest being 
on earth, his morning " tub " seemingly to become 
a perfect mania with him and secured despite ob- 
stacles which the ordinary man would blanch at 
contemplating. I once ran in upon a Briton in the 
heart of Siberia who was standing, bare-footed, on 
an ice covered floor, throwing over his naked body 
water, which in the temperature of the outhouse he 
had improvised into a bath room, was almost con- 
cealed before it reached his knees. 



THAT WHICH IS NEXT TO GODI.INESvS. 69 

The Hindus, of course, do not have to go to such 
extremes to insure their all absorbing realization of 
purification, but I have known Dave who, never 
before out of lower Southern India, and beheld 
snow for the first time in his life in Northern 
Baluchistan, to break the ice of a frozen stream to 
secure the full bathing of the person exacted before 
he could partake of his morning repast. 

People who see the Hindus about the chief cities 
of India, or upon the highways leading thereto, 
and judge merely by appearances think them a 
dirty looking lot as a whole. This is hardly to be 
wondered at considering their attire, which is often 
confined to loins cloth and turban, the rest being 
the brown of nature's robing. The servant classes 
or castes in the cities wear more clothing, their 
costume sometimes extending to jackets, short 
trousers after the order of knee breeches but with 
the legs and feet bare. Children until seven or 
eight years old go in nature's garb, enhanced only 
by bands of metal, gold, silver or steel, about the 
wrist and sometimes around the ankles as well. 



70 THAT WHICH IS NEXT TO GODLINESS. 

Some upper-caste Hindus have taken to European 
dress even to slioes, but rarely doffing the turban 
for other head gear. In the' village the middle 
caste men may be seen with one strip of white 
cloth tucked loosely about the waist and extending 
nearly to the feet, and another strip thrown over 
the shoulder after the toga fashion. Stockings 
nobody thinks of requiring, and not one in a thou- 
sand deem foot covering of any description essen- 
tial. Turbans as well are not of the necessities, 
the bare head in the country being much more 
common than the covered. As previously remarked, 
however, the bulk of the Hindus go through life 
marked by a Spartan severity of apparel, which 
enables anatomical demonstration one speedily 
loses interest in through the exceeding uniformity 
of the subjects. Strictly vegetarian, eating no 
meat of any description, there is an absence of flesh 
which suggests deprivation of food to an extent 
which is misleading, for while appa.rently half 
starved, they are not. 

Accustomed to beholding the general run of our 



THAT WHICH IS NiiXT TO GODLINEvSS. 7 1 

population in the regulation clothing none of us, it 
may be conjectured, have stopped to realize how 
many thin people we see every day, or how the 
average man would appear to us as regards his 
bodily condition, if presenting his ribs, shoulder 
blades and elbow joints, as likewise his knee and 
ankle intersections to the public view. I opine 
there would be companion associations to those for 
the prevention of cruelty to animals instituted 
forthwith, and man's inhumanity to man become 
the burden of new refrains without number. It is 
often much of that we do not see which we make the 
most fuss about, and that which is right before our 
eyes is passed unnoticed altogether. On the other 
hand, so strangely incongruous is humanity consti^ 
tuted, appearances as a general thing are accepted 
as convincing. 

The most one sees of a Hindu is brown, a more 
or less dull sienna colored frame-work of bones and 
joints with the skin overdrawn tightly, and often 
the whole suggestive of the certainty of a parting 
of the covering in event of over-exertion. 



72 THAT WHICH IS NEXT TO GODLINESS. 

The Hindu has a queer liking for having his joints 
cracked, as some of us can remember having our own 
fingers pulled until the knuckles snapped. He, hov/- 
ever, is not content unless all his joints are jerked, 
and the richer and more luxurious enjoy the opera- 
tion daily, it being of the barber's training to do it 
skillfully, to the supreme enjoyment of his patrons. 
The poorer people do it for each other, and the 
practice has not been conducive to improving the 
appearance of the legs and arms so much in evi- 
dence ; the abnormal projections having been taken 
as another indication of semi-starvation. 

No man is more given to having his face scraped 
than the Hindu, or is as fastidious as to where it is 
done. A religious duty of the highest order in the 
general scheme of personal cleanliness, only the 
barber who has been duly raised to his office can do 
the shaving, which must ever be in the open and 
with the greatest care that none of the refuse shall in 
any manner get within doors. Hair is regarded as 
most impure and a lock from the head, or cutting 
however microsco^^ic, from the beard, pla3's sad 




THAT WHICH IS NEXT TO GODLINESS. 73 

havoc when discovered in an unexpected place. 
The richer people are shaved regularly every day, 
having their hands manicured as well, the latter 
coming within their religious code. The ordinary 
castes are shaved weekly, the lower fortnightly, and 
with all it is the custom to wear the moustache, 
kept trimmed to prevent the defilement of food 
as it passes into the mouth. The Hindus are very 
proud of their hands, and they have reason to be, 
for even among the lowliest they are notable for 
slender, tapering fingers, perfect nails, and shape, 
as a whole, suggestive of the aristocrat. 



X. 

FINGERS BEFORE FORKS. 

Look the second time at the Hindu and you will 
discover the cloth of his turban is spotless in its 
snowy whiteness if uncolored, or if of the promi- 
nent hues of the rainbow, you make a mistake in 
deeming it or the loin covering unclean because of 
the predominating shade of the man's tottt ejisem- 
ble being bro¥/n — a dirty brown, you may say. 
Certainly there are exceptions, the good, bad and 
indifferent Hindu, as in every other race, but col- 
lectively they are remarkable for their adherence to 
what might properly be termed the first tenet of 
their religious creed, personal purification. 

Chatting with a high bred and really elegant 
Hindu gentleman, one as deservedly entitled to the 
much abused designation as an)- man of whatever 
nationalit}^ it has been my pleasure to meet, he 



w 


--^\ 


r 


-. f ' 


^' 


~~^\ \ 




' -' -C\ 




\M 



FINGERS BEFORE FORKS. 75 

expressed the liveliest surprise that we Europeans 
—all Western people are so classed—with our 
refinement and culture should continue to practice 
habits as to eating which to him appeared very 
questionable. 

''It is not," he said, "that I speak of them 
because my religion exacts what yours does not. 
I view from the sanitary standpoint as well as that 
of personal delicacy of feeling when saying nothing 
astonished me more in your country than the gen- 
eral uncleanliness of the people, one and all, in so 
unconcernedly using knives, forks and spoons which 
had been in the mouths of whom nobody knew or 
cared. Used in table service and passed thence to 
be cleansed without the merest personal attention 
as to the care of the servants in accomplishing it, 
when again required placed at haphazard, the knife 
going to one seat, the fork to another, and the 
spoon anywhere. Your surgeons sterilize surgical 
instruments before using them the second time, but 
you unhesitatingly thrust fork and spoon into your 
mouth without the slightest fear as to the saliva of 



76 FINGERS BEFORE FORKvS. 

any one else being left thereon by heedless haste in 
the pantry or kitchen. I carried my own table 
implements with me wherever I went ; sterilized 
them myself, and even then felt uncomfortable at 
every succeeding use. We may seem heathenish 
to you in our adhering to the lingers of the right 
hand as the means of conveying food, but we know 
they have been in the mouth of no one else, and 
this is a satisfaction as it is also reassuring." 

My friend might have continued further and ex- 
plained that as the Hindus ate no meat, knives are 
practically unknown at meals, and the usual dishes 
served are in such form as to readily enable the use 
of the fingers. With us it is needless to say that 
any suck recourse would be wholly impracticable, 
inherited tendencies, training and environment ren- 
dering even the thought a repellent one. To us I 
mean, not to the Hindu, our complete apotheosis 
makes us as inexplicable to him as he is to us. 

Nevertheless, there v/as some point to the Hindu 
criticism, and his consistency in all having .to do 
with the person is so marked as to add strength to 



FINGERS BEFORE FORKS. 



n 



his position. Even when well to do, and the oppor- 
tunities for education, cultivation and refinement 
taken advantage of, his preference is for the leaves 
of plants in table service rather than china or other 
ware. Palm, fern and lotus growth is so profuse as 
to enable employment to any extent, and a .single 
use is all ever thought of by the very poorest. 
When earthen ware is used it is thrown away, 
except among the indigent, and the increased de- 
mand for it comes from enabling, at no great 
expense, the practice of discarding after one use. 

Rice is the staple food and generally speaking it 
is beautifully cooked, white as snow, fluffy, that is 
to say, as light as cotton, each kernel as if prepared 
separately and the whole centering a large, lovely 
green leaf, when served, is as pretty and inviting a 
dish as can be imagined. Some of the strictest of 
the sectarians will not use green leaves, their 
devotion to all things living compelling them to 
seek only the dead in vegetation. The more 
liberal now and then eat fish, but not often, and 
occasionally goat meat is partaken of, but only 



I 






78 FINGERS BEFORE FORKS. 

sucli as comes from sacrificial altars where it has 
been rendered sacred. The lower or strictly labor- 
ing classes are not averse to eggs, the flesh of fowls 
and even mutton, caste rules generally regulating 
what shall be eaten and what shall not. 

I have known beef to be served at the table of a 
wealthy and influential Hindu inclined to European 
customs, and have sat with Hindus in the house of 
a European who there partook of the cut of roast 
beef served to them with, at the least, no outward 
evidence of its being repugnant. Among people, 
in numbers running into the hundreds of millions, 
it manifestly would be an impossibility to say what 
they all do or do not do. Beef serving or eating, 
however, is more rare than pork serving or eating 
is among the Jews, and flesh food of any descrip- 
tion is decidedly the exception. The Hindu, as 
has hitherto been said, is a vegetarian pure and sim- 
ple, and to meet his wants, religiousl}^ refrains from 
sacrificing life in any and every shape. He will 
not himself destroy it or encourage others to b}^ eat- 
ing of such as has been killed no matter by whom. 



FINGERS BEFORE FORKS. 79 

" Ghee " is regarded by the Hindus as the purest 
thing they can eat, and Das describes its manufac- 
ture as follows : " Fresh drawn milk is boiled in 
an earthen pot for an hour or more, and after this 
cooking a little curdled milk is added. The mass 
is then churned for half an hour, some hot water 
added, and another half hour's churning brings the 
butter. This is then boiled until all the watery 
particles and curd have been removed by repeated 
skimmings." The clear oil is poured into vessels 
to cool, and is used by Hindu and Mohammedan 
alike for cooking as also in certain cases for medi- 
cinal purposes. It will keep for years, losing its 
flavor somewhat but not its properties, which im- 
prove with age. In some families are earthen jars 
of it kept buried underground and a hundred 3'ears 
old. " Ghee " has been known to be preserved for 
upward of two hundred years. 

Two meals comprise the usual habit ; one at 
midday, and the other in the evening. The prepa- 
ration of these meals is characterized by a similar 
punctilious adherence to religious exactions mark- 



8o FINGKRS BEFORE FORKS. 

ing the partaking. The Hindu woman bathes from 
head to feet before entering the kitchen, and not 
only puts on perfectly clean clothing, but it must 
have been washed and dried in the sun. Certain 
dishes require additional ablutions, some of them a 
second complete bath and change of garments. 
The self-respecting wife when at her household 
duties is the very pink of neatness as to her 
person, her apparel, the utensils and the food she 
prepares. The purification which the faith de- 
mands keeps her constantly at herself or the pots, 
kettles and pans, and the kitchen is her kingdom 
in which no man can enter. 

It is sacred ground ; so absolutely that once 
when I wholly unintentionally blundered into one, 
the result was as if the plague had struck it. Dave 
told me all that had to be done to insure purifica- 
tion from the pollution I had unwittingly caused ; 
and, if it was as he said, they must be still at the 
process of rehabilitation. The preservation of the 
purity of water, against a possible contamination by 
its association with that which may not be recognized 



FINGERS BEFORE FORKS, 8 1 

by religious traditions, is a perfect fever with them. 
If I remember correctly, one of the dire results of my 
invasion was the falling of my shadow in such way 
as to necessitate the filling of a well, and the digging 
of a new one. 

The use of betel throughout the empire is in 
some respects quite suggestive of our tobacco habit 
in its different phases, only it is carried beyond 
personal pleasure and the interchange of the civili- 
ties with friends, as is our custom. It is taken 
after meals, as we do a cigar for agreeable digestive 
purposes, and is also chewn as we masticate tobacco. 
Handed by one to another, as was wont with our 
high-toned gentlemen of the good old school, it is 
with the Hindu, " have a betel " when you meet, 
and " take another " when you part. It is a gross 
insult to decline. A Hindu gentleman to violate a 
promise of friendship, fail to meet a contract or 
neglect an engagement entered into with the betel 
as a pledge, would dishonor himself beyond repara- 
tion. It is a goodly sized leaf — six by eight inches, 
or thereabouts — heart shaped, somewhat narcotic as 



82 FINGERS BEFORE FORKS. 

also aromatic, and the teeth, as well as the lips, indi- 
cate its presence in the mouth. 

" Pan " is another form in which the betel adds 
to the Hindu after-dinner enjoyment. Within a 
leaf which is fastened with a clove are various 
spices mixed with the betel, and after one gets 
accustomed to taking lime, cinnamon, cardennias, 
etc., etc., in this manner it is not so bad. 

Dave himself was always away at my meal time, 
and his hours for refreshment I never discovered. 
He would no more see me eat than he would let me 
see him at his repast. A Mohammedan, or Jacob 
waited upon me, and generally it was the latter, as he 
accompanied me whenever dining out, it being the 
custom to take your servant with you on such oc- 
casions. All your servants look out for themselves 
as to their food and sleeping place, so what Dave 
ate, when or where, was no concern of mine. I found 
his disinclination to look at. me, or have me view 
him, when caring for the wants of the inner man 
was by no means confined to his class or caste, but 
extended to the very highest, even to the throne. 



XI. 



THE WAY OF A MAHARAJAH. 



When in Caslimere, or Kashmir, as the English 
authorities have decided to be the proper spelling, 
the Maharajah — Hindu ruler — in the course of the 
first formal audience I had with him, invited me to 
return the following week and become his especial 
guest at the great reception — dabar — he had ex- 
tended to the Governor of the Punjab, it being an 
annual honor paid the highest European official in 
northwestern India, and therefore a most important 
function. 

In his highness' eagerness to have me accept, and 
in evidence of the royal favor my acquiescence had 
invoked, the Maharajah created a dickens of a time 
in his court by ordering pen, ink and paper to be 
brought him, that, with his own hand, he might 
indite and sign the invitation. In vain he was told 




84 I'HE WAY OF A MAHARAJAH. 

this would not comport with his dignity as a 
sovereign, and especially in the presence of Euro- 
peans, who knew how such things should be 
managed, he ought to be careful and conform his 
high and mighty doings to the proper standard — 
have some style about him, so to speak. But write 
and subscribe to that invitation he would, and he 
did, and among all my mementos of the kind I have 
none more unique. 

Its general aspect reflects the man who in one 
way was a nondescript, and yet no fool, as acquaint- 
ance with him proved. Given to European imita- 
tion in some things and adhering to the native in 
others, the conglomeration was peculiar inasmuch 
that in his course of conduct, as in his dress, one 
could not just place him and be satisfied he would 
stay as placed. With it all he was most kindly 
disposed, and the soul of hospitality. What he did 
not know to add to the pleasure of his guests, he 
frankly asked them to suggest. In person, rather 
small, the fine bronze tone of the face and hands 
was heightened by the strong contrast with the 



THE WAY OF A MAHARAJAH. 85 

color of liis robes, and there was undeniably that 
something suggestive in him, of one born to have 
his own way. 

When received, I was assigned the chair immedi- 
ately to his right, and in such close proximity my 
clothing touched that of his highness which, from 
his turbaned head to his brown bare feet, was snowy 
white. The single huge diamond w^hich consti- 
tuted a headlight in his tremendously big turban, 
did not wholly draw attention away from the black 
bearded face which, with chin deep in the dead 
white folds of his bodily garment, stared at me as a 
child stares when expecting you to tell a particu- 
larly exciting story. Suddenly, and upon, I sup- 
pose, spying my guard chain, he asked to see my 
watch which, like the incorrigible Tod in Helen's 
Babies, would not suffice him until he saw the 
wheels go 'round. Diving into the plenitude of 
whiteness which swathed him from feet to neck, 
the Maharajah pulled out a personal timepiece, 
such an one as I never before or since saw, and 
which I was later informed by a court ofHcial had 



86 THE WAY OF A MAHARAJAH. 

been especially made by Tiffany for his liighness at 
a cost of — I do not know how many — thousands of 
dollars. In diameter it was almost as large as the 
top of the crown of my silk hat — which at the time 
was the nearest object affording a comparison — 
and the tick of it as musical as a bell. It had 
jewels outside and in, wherever they could be made 
to find resting place, and when his highness, naively 
remarked that my watch was not much of a one 
by the side of his, or words to such effect, I fully 
coincided with him. Yet with the true courtesy of 
the Oriental, he at once offered to present me his, in 
exchange for the honor, and that sort of thing, don't 
you know, which it would ever be to him to wear 
mine. Having previously been overpowered by 
lofty condescension of approximating purport I de- 
clined with thanks, and the Maharajah again 
breathed easily. 

His highness, I was somewhat surprised to learn, 
was not married, cared nothing whatever for woman- 
kind, and confined his attention and society ex- 
clusively to his male friends and associates. 



THE WAY OF A MAHARAJAH. 87 

His brother, the Rajah, to whom I was subse- 
quently presented, proved a splendid fellow and in 
appearance and deportment, a prince to the manor 
born. While not of more than the average height, 
his build was symmetrical and supple, suggesting 
statue really greater than it was. Handsome as 
a picture, easy, and the gentleman in every move- 
ment, there was no apparent incongruity in the 
large white turban surmounting the form, otherwise 
clad in European fashion — frock coat, vest, trousers 
and gaiters to match. His color, as that of his 
elder brother, the Maharajah, was a perfect bronze, 
but in the Rajah, heightened in effect by the rich 
blood coursing through the cheeks, and indicating 
itself in the general brightness of the countenance, 
the strong and attractive feature of which was the 
pair of sparkling and indisputably intelligent big 
black eyes. 

Seated upon his thoroughbred Arabian horse, he 
was a model for a Messonnier, and a vision a sus- 
ceptible girl would not get out of her head for a 
year. His apartments throughout were of Euro- 




88 THE WAY OF A MAHARAJAH. 

pean style in furnishings, draperies and accessories. 
In his drawing-room I saw autograph portraits of 
Queen Victoria and Emperor William, as well as of 
Alexander III. of Russia ; likewise a magnificent 
sjvord,' the present of the Prince of Wales, and 
other remembrances from the royalty of the 
Occident. 

^here was still another brother, a second Rajah, 
a quiet, rather retiring man, although the head of 
the native army. Later, when with the Governor 
of the Punjab, I attended the festivities arranged in 
his honor, we saw the army in grand review and 
the military Rajah in all his glory, which, to his 
credit let it be said, he sustained modestly and with 
every care not to outshine others. 

In specializing the occasion, his highness, the 
Maharajah, appeared in a somewhat eccentric get-up, 
a black frock coat — Prince Albert — being added to 
his usual costume, which still remained marked by 
very loose, baggy trousers tied at the ankles, the 
latter, as the feet, encased in very wrinkled stock- 
ings, shoes being conspicuous by their absence. 



THE WAY OF A MAHARAJAH. 89 

There was a religious observance before the review, 
as also after it, and the banners carried in parade 
were all of a sacred significance. 

The night of the grand banquet was a memora- 
ble one, and anxious as was evidently the Maharajah 
to go to the farthest limit in respecting the customs 
of his guests, he sturdily drew the line at his 
religion, suffering no desire to please which would 
lead him for a moment to violate or ignore its 
precepts. 

He had caused to be prepared a sumptuous din- 
ner, European throughout in the edibles, the courses 
as served, the wines, the spread of the table and 
super-additions generally. Surrounded by his 
brothers, his ministers and the entire court, he 
received us as he would the exalted, and on the 
termination of the ceremonies we walked from the 
Dabar — reception — hall to the residential palace, 
where the banquet was served, by a pathway car- 
peted the entire distance with Cashmere shawls of 
priceless value. At the entrance of the banqueting 
room the Maharajah, his brothers — the two Rajahs, 



go THE WAY OF A MAHARAJAH. 

and all else in liis highness' train, as completely 
vanished as if the earth had opened and engulfed 
them. Animal food was to be served in that room, 
beef, mutton, venison and other, and although his 
guests, the Maharajah would not cross its portals 
with us. The Governor was the host to all intents 
and purposes. 

As the affair progressed, I noticed every now and 
then there appeared to be a commotion within the 
doorway through which the Mohammedan waiters 
disappeared with the remains of each course. 
Quietly investigating, through Jacob's assistance, I 
discovered the Maharajah had located himself there, 
and was roundly scoring the luckless attendants 
upon the table whenever they brought unpartaken 
food from it. His Highness' notion was that if not 
all eaten the cooks or waiters were at fault, and as 
the banquet neared the end, with the usual result 
of many comparatively untouched plates, the situ- 
ation at that particular door almost developed into 
a row. Happily it was averted by the waiters being 
sent out through another, and before the Maharajah 



THE WAY OI^ A MAHARAJAH. 9 1 

^' caught on " the time had come for him to receive 
us again at the grand entrance, and the entire party 
repaired to the broad verandah of another palace to 
witness the fireworks, which were chiefly dis- 
tinguished by noise, the bombs in size and number 
producing a racket presumptive of a genuine 
warfare. 

My visit to the Maharajah had but one regret, 
and it was the changing of his mind when about to 
present me with a superb example of the silk rug 
work for which his country is so noted. He had 
very cordially invited me to come and spend a 
month with him the succeeding summer, and as he 
was going to pass the precious fabric over to my 
possession he suddenly decided he would retain it 
for me until my return. As I have not been back, 
his highness still acts as my treasure-keeper, and is 
liable to so continue indefinitely. I have a large 
and elaborately framed portrait of him which he 
forwarded me some time since in Germany ; this, I 
suppose, as a reminder of what he is waiting for me 
to come and claim. The Maharajah's collection of 



92 THE WAY OF A MAHARAJAH. 

Cashmere carpets — or, as we term them, rugs— is of 
a value beyond computation. The English Resi- 
dent at Junioo told me that, on the authority of his 
government, he had offered his highness ten thou- 
sand pounds sterling — $50,000 — for one of them, it 
being held by connoisseurs to be the finest manu- 
facture of its description in the world. 

Kashmir, while ostensibly included among the 
provinces of India, as under full English control, is 
not so in fact,' and is more of a protectorate than 
a dependency. The English Resident is at the 
capital under the guise of physician in chief to 
the Maharajah, and there are also two or three 
other Englishmen in various capacities, but no 
English occupation for trade purposes, and no 
troops whatever. Under the agreement with the 
India government none can cross the river which 
constitutes the boundary line. Two-thirds of the 
population of Kashmir are Mohammedan, and but 
a third, say a million, of the religious faith of the 
ruler, the Maharajah, who is a Hindu of the Sikh 
sect. 



XII 



THE QUART INTO THE PINT CUR 



Hinduism applied to India as a whole, must be 
taken as of a decidedly flexible nature to compre- 
hend its operation. What of it may fit as to one 
section does not in another, and the mistake people 
make who rely upon one or the other of the trans- 
lations of the Veda and supplementary books, for 
their information in compiling works upon the 
religion of the country, is precisely the same made 
as regards our own Scriptures by the Hindu scholar 
when his knowledge of us and ours is similarly ./y 
confined. He searches through the pages of such jlm 
biblical publications as he can lay hands upon for (i\ 
exceptional portions, or weak spots, in the presenta- //ji 
tion of our claims to being doctrinally consistent, 
as also to our having incontestably fixed all the main 
and contributing data of sacred history. 




94 I'HE QUART INTO THE PINT CUP. 

We follow identically the same course as concerns 
his religion and its authorities. We have greatl}^ 
the better of him in reaching and impressing the 
world at large, as well as the advantage of a unani- 
mity of sympathy over the progressive portions of 
it. If our side could only concur a little bit the 
Hindu would not, as the saying goes, "be in it," 
for with the great European scholars agreed as to 
what the Rig- Veda and the works following it act- 
ually say and mean, and when it was and who said 
it, the Christian literati would carry everything 
before them. But with each scholastic translator 
viewing his results as he would his own composi- 
tion, and all the way from five to fifteen hundred 
years dividing them in their affixing of dates of 
Hindu emanations, one involuntarily shrinks at the 
thought of the possible situation as regards our own 
revered records and literature, had there been a 
reversal of the circumstances and Christianity in- 
stead of Hinduism been in the crucible. 

To understand and judge any religion, its exem- 
plification by those professing it is the only satis- 



THK QUART INTO THE PINT CUP. 95 

factory basis to proceed from, and to get a quarter 
of a billion of people to a single level from whicli 
to view their belief and practice, is a problem many 
much better men than myself have given up in 
despair. With only some twenty millions of pro- 
fessing Christians in our own country, the denomi- 
national differences dividing us aggregate one hun- 
dred and forty odd. A like proportion would give 
Hinduism eighteen hundred. Nothing approaching 
such ratio exists, and in reality very much the 
larger number, as in the case with us, are in three 
or four preponderating divisions. 

The fundamental belief of all is Brahma, and 
what might be denominated the first of Genesis in 
the Vedic Bible reads, vide the Miiller translation, 
" In the beginning there arose the Source of Glori- 
ous Light. He was the only born Lord of all that 
is. He established the earth and the sky : Who is 
the God to whom we shall offer our sacrifice ? He 
who gives us life, He who gives us strength ; whose 
blessing all the bright gods desire ; Whose shadow 
is immortality ; Whose shadow is death. He who 



g6 THE QUART INTO THE PINT CUP. 

through His power is the only king of the breath- 
ing and awakening world. He who governs all, 
man and beast. He whose power the snowy moun- 
tains and the sea proclaim. They are His two arms. 
He through whom the sky is bright and the earth 
firm. He through whom the heaven was estab- 
lished—the highest heaven. He who measured out 
the light in the air. He to whom heaven and earth 
standing firm by His will, look up trembling in- 
wardly. He over whom the rising sun shines forth. 
Wherever the mighty water clouds w^ent, where 
they placed the seed and lit the fire, thence rose He 
who by His might, looked even over the water clouds 
— the clouds which gave strength — -and lit the sac- 
rifice. He who is God above all gods. May He not 
destroy us ? He is the Creator of the earth. He the 
righteous who created the heaven. He who created 
the bright and mighty waters." 

Fifteen centuries before Christ, according to the 
researches of some Christian scholars, and thirty 
centuries before Him, by the claim of more than 
one of the more distinguished of the Hindu savants, 



THK QUART INTO THE PINT CUP. 97 

was this conception of the Creator of All. No two 
authorities reach the same phraseology or agree as 
to the time when the original was first promulgated. 
Its existence before the dawn of the Christian era 
is now, however, generally conceded, and this is 
the material point to the layman who wants to find 
a beginning and avoid the labyrinth, in which those 
largely instrumental in creating it, have themselves 
become confounded. 

It would be strange indeed if radical changes in 
theological interpretation had not transpired through 
the ages elapsing since the inception of Hinduism 
which a no less esteemed authority than Horace 
Wilson, Professor of Sanscrit at Oxford, placed at 
2600 B. C, or two and a half centuries prior to the 
date ascribed to the Flood in Archbishop Usher's 
Chronology adopted by the Church of England. 
We have only to glance at our own religious record 
of but nineteen hundred years duration to form 
some idea of what must have taken place through 
a period of forty-five hundred years. The difficulty 
the over-zealous Christian scholars have encountered 




98 THE QUART INTO THE PINT CUP. 

is the attempt to get the quart into the pint cup, as 
it were : to so boil down the forty-five and a half 
centuries as to make the nineteen hold them. 

In other words, essay to prove that whatever there 
may be in other religions which suggests or pro- 
jects parallels with Christianity, must of necessity 
have sprung from a knowledge of the latter. A 
very narrow view of the omnipotence of God, but 
one nevertheless widely prevailing and accounting 
for so much which is confusing and perplexing in 
comparative contemplation. You do not know 
whose word to take, upon what authority to rely, 
or the source of data to recourse to in attempting 
to convey the inwardness of things religious which 
will the better enable comprehension. 



XIII. 



THE HINDU TRINITY. 



Duality, is the keystone in the arch of the Hindu 
literalism, so phrasing that which might be denoted 
as of the non-spiritual and visible, rather than the 
contravening belief in the non-visible and strictly 
spiritual in religion. Scientists have proven that 
everything in nature is self-producing ; this being 
o true, and through the common operation, as evident 
J in the least as in the greatest of the creation into 
which God breathed the breath of life. Ever3^thing 
which grows, lives and has a being, man, animal, 
tree, vegetable, plant, whatever the multiform- 
ity, there is no variation in the principle. 

To insist that the incarnation of the reproductive 
in Siva, who is at one and the same time the de- 
stroyer and the reproducer — death and life — is and 
can be no other than a reprehensible conception, is 





lOO THE HINDU TRINITY. 

to attribute to the Hindu the faculty for distinguish- 
ing wire-drawn jooints, a distinction which is usually 
held to be the sole province of the higher civilization. 

Sex was recognized by our Aryan forefathers in 
the fatherhood of the heavens, and the motherhood 
of the earth, and the Hindus' first lesson from them 
naturally led to the association of a mate with 
Brahma. Every incarnation of the Divine Father 
has had its prototype in the female, and Christians 
who ridicule the Hindu for his married gods or 
bright beings, do so despite the fact that they would 
be the first to charge him with inconsistency were 
he to evince a predeliction for celibate devas. 

Every time I get back to the thought that I should 
be clearer and somewhat more expansive in my 
elucidation as to what Hinduism is, not knowing it 
technically myself, and being told by some of the 
book authorities I have no business to form con- 
clusions from what I saw or heard from the Hindus 
themselves, I spend another period reading up with 
the outcome of becoming more muddled than ever. 
T do not think an alien is competent to decide m 



THE HINDU TRINITY. lOI 

extenso what the Hindu believes or what he does 
not believe, which can be exactly defined from the 
orthodox Christian standpoint. 

The aspect of the two faiths is as contrasting as 
night and day. To say Vishnu, Krishna or Rama, 
by whichever term the scholar may designate the 
incarnation of Brahma, or God the Father, is not to 
the Hindu as the Saviour is to the Christian, is to 
pervert the fact through the refusal to admit, even 
for argument's sake, that any people but ourselves can 
have a Divine Hero. 

I scarcely know which of the appellatives to 
specify — Vishnu, Krishna or Rama — likely to be 
the more familiar to the hearer, as being the Christ, 
so to speak, to the Hindu. It will be as he may 
have read some author — Sir Monier Williams, for 
instance — -inclining to the first named, another, as 
Professor Stone, to the second, and still another, as 
Professor Wilson to the third. The trio means 
the one, Vishnu ; Krishna and Rama being in a 
sense endearments growing out of the fancied re- 
semblance, in these the two greatest personages of 



I02 THE HIIN^DU TRINITY. 

the religious romances which have so prodigious a 
hold upon the people, to the sublime character at- 
tributed to the first named. Vishnu is the only 
one of the three regarded as of divine origin, although 
conceded to have been born of human parents. 
Krishna and Rama are both supposed to have been 
great heroes in their time—the former a chief of the 
Yardava tribe of Rajputs in Central India, and the 
latter a son of a king of Oudh — and, through the 
singing of their praises by the poets, elevated 
through the characteristic incarnating process to 
deification. 

Vishnu as the incarnation of "the Supreme, 
Brahma the Absolute, Having no form nor Shape, 
Self Existent, Illimitable, Cannot be Imagined, Com- 
prehended, etc., etc.," gives name to the Hindu 
worship as Christ does to ours. " Vishnuism," says 
Monier Williams, " I must declare my belief is the 
only religion of the Hindu people, and has more 
common ground with Christianity than any other 
non-Christian faith. It alone possesses the elements 
of a genuine religion. For there can be no religion 



THE HINDU TRINITY. IO3 

without personal devotion to a personal God — with- 
out trusting Him, without loving Him, without 
praying to Him, and, indeed, without obeying Him. 
Such a God is believed to be Vishnu — the God who 
evinces his sympathy with mundane suffering, his 
interest in human affairs, and his activity for the 
welfare of all created beings." Sir William Hunter 
also expresses his belief in Vishnuism being the 
religion of the masses, saying, "It is a religion in 
all things graceful. Its gods are heroes or bright, 
friendly beings, who walk and converse with men. 
Its legends breathe an almost Hellenic beauty." 
Bettany says, " We must recognize the distinct merit 
of Vishnuism to be that it teaches intense devotion 
to a personal God who exhibits sympathy with 
man's sufferings and interest in human affairs." 

Both incarnations of Vishnu — Krishna and Rama 
— and as such re-incarnations of Brahma the " Eter- 
nal One," are humanized to an extent appealing 
powerfully to man's devotion. We have many 
appellatives for the Saviour, and in their significance 
they are one and the same. In his way the Hindu 



I04 THE HINDU TRINITY. 

expresses similar import in reverence. His literal- 
ism carries him to extremes in incarnations or 
embodiments. He is realistic. We are mystic. He 
sees. We feel. 

Through the poem, Krishna says to the Hindu, 
" I have neither friend or foe. I am the same to 
all who worship me, dwell in me and I in them. 
To them that love me I give that devotion by which 
they come at last to me. No soul that has faith, 
however imperfect the attainment, or however the 
soul has wandered, shall perish, either in this world 
or another. He shall have new birth, 'till purified 
and perfect, he reaches the supreme abode." 

Brahma, Vishnu and Siva are the Hindu trinity — 
F'ather, Son, and although the third is also of the 
male sex, his principal attributes are such as in the 
connection might justify his being termed the 
Mother, at the least in the sense that in him is typi- 
fied the reproductive. This, Prof. Miiller would 
surely declare unscientific, but I am desirous of 
securing an understanding in spite of the conven- 
tionalities which circumscribe my allusions, and 



I'HK HINDU TRINITY. IO5 

this must be my excuse for what may appear au 
antithesis. It is not so much so, however, to the 
Hindu to whom the moon is masculine and the sun 
feminine, and who also further confounds our no- 
tions of the proper gender by like reversals. 

Brahma is " The one and only God and He has 
No Second," is "Without Beginning and Without 
Ending," and thus might the quotations from the 
Vedic and other sacred literature of the Hindu be 
continued, almost indefinitely, to prove Monotheism 
the root and basis of Hinduism. No images, idols 
or other representations are made of, or temples, 
shrines or the like reared to Brahma. In the long ago 
this rule, it is asserted, was not adhered to as it has 
been in the past centuries, and there are said to be 
examples of images of Him extant, as well as one 
or two very old temples dedicated to Him. 

"I have frequently asked," affirms Professor 
Mitchell, "where is the temple of the Supreme?" 
"Temple of the Supreme, what do you mean? 
There is no such temple." "Why?" "Because 
He can have none. He is formless, nameless, incom- 



Io6 THE HINDU TRINITY. 

prehensible and we cannot worship Him." "And 
therefore you worship idols? " " Certainly, an idol 
is indispensable. We need such visible object on 
which our minds can rest." 

This is in accord with Monier Williams' state- 
ment, " It is a cardinal feature of the Hindu system 
that the Universal Spirit can never itself be directly 
or spiritually worshipped except by turning the 
thoughts inward." Monier Williams unequivocally 
declares he never saw either image of, or temple to 
Brahma, and few men have given the personal study 
of Hinduism the time and care he has. He 
emphatically refutes the argument of those who 
advance the theory that the absence of idols and 
temples to Brahma is in consequence of a tendency 
to ignore Him in modern Hinduism, showing that 
in the acknowledgment of Brahma as the one God, 
and thus not possible to conceive of in form, the 
Hindu has ever been consistent and Monotheistic. 



XIV. 

MANY MEN OF MANY MINDS. 

Exceptional instances of sectarian extremes are 
witnessed in all lands, and there is no reason why- 
Hindus should be judged as a whole, by the few, any 
more than ourselves. Vishnuism is the prevailing 
form of Hinduism ; Sivaism is an adjunct to it, a 
sect and not a sect, inasmuch as the larger number 
of the Sivaites are also Vishnuites. A fair illus- 
tration might be found in several of our own 
denominational differences where there are divisions 
within divisions. Some of these agree upon main 
points and others practically on none, yet retain the 
original name with prefixes or additions, supposed, 
I presume, to take out a bit of the sting. 

This is about as it is in India, although it is sur- 
prising how few the really distinctive sects are, 
especially when remembering the Hindu religion 



I08 MANY MEN OF MANY MINDS. 

to be the oldest in the world. The Sikhs are pos- 
sibly the more radically differing from the main, of 
any of the sects, in that they have no gods through 
which to illustrate their service, and confine them- 
selves to the adoration of the "Granth" — their 
bible — toward which, however, their course of con- 
duct is not largely different from that of the others 
as to their images and idols. 

The Sikhs, numbering some two and a half mil- 
lions, are a superior people in physique, self control 
and personal courage. The Sikh regiments in the 
service of the Government are the most imposing 
of any of the native military organizations. Stal- 
wart, stern and soldierly, the Sikh is a man to be 
depended upon in any emergency. Impressed with 
this fact, the Englishman took to making use of him 
for police purposes in other colonies and European 
reservations. The strapping big fellows the travel- 
ler sees doing such duty in Hong Kong, Shanghai, 
Singapore and other Eastern centres of European- 
ism, are Sikhs from India. 

Kabir, in the Fourteenth Century, taught Vish- 



MANY MEN OF MANY MINDvS. IO9 

nuism as a pure Monotheism, and from Nanak, his 
follower in the Fifteenth Century, the Sikhs had 
their rise. " Hari," the name Vishnu is still 
known by, was used by Nanak, and his bible, the 
"Granth," declares the Fatherhood and Unity of 
God. Images are forbidden. The baptism is with 
water in which a little sugar is placed, and at con- 
secration is mixed with a two edged dagger. 

Caituya, contemporary with L^uther, was teach- 
ing in India that Vishnuism, as incarnated in 
Krishna, was love of God for man, when the great 
German reformer was rousing Europe to the doc- 
trine of salvation by faith in Jesus Christ. 

As with us, so with the Hindus, there are many 
men of many minds, and while there are differ- 
ences, they are often more fancied than real. 

The brotherhood of man is recognized by most 
of the Hindu sects, and there are numerous monas- 
teries in which the primary principle is, that the life 
of neither man nor beast shall be taken inasmuch as 
it is the gift of God. Some of the sects holding, as 
God is a spirit,it is wrong to make an image of Him, 



no MANY MKN OF MANY MINDS. 

still continue ceremonies before idols typifying one 
or more incarnations. 

In using the term idol, it is in the sense which, if 
analyzed, would not greatly contrast with similar 
creations elsewhere which I do not regard as 
actually worshipped as a direct incarnation or 
embodiment of God, but reverenced as symbolical 
in one way or another of His attributes. I never 
so reverenced or have I ever paid devotion to such, 
but to me it makes no difference in that if, in the 
light possessed, it is a conscientious and honest 
belief, it is entitled to respect. Why should we be 
so everlastingly touchy on the subject of idols, 
when we all have them of one kind or another, and 
none of them would pass muster as anything else if 
subjected to the strictly scriptural test. 

The markings upon the face one notes among 
the Hindus are indicative of the sects, and their 
presence show the prescribed bath of the day has 
been taken or that he has conformed to other re- 
ligious regulations. 

Two perpendicular white lines passing from the 



MANY MEN OF MANY MINDS. Ill 

roots of the hair to the eyebrows, a transverse line 
crossing the top of the nose, connecting the other 
two, and a centering transverse streak of red, to- 
gether with the patches of white and red on the 
breast and arms, denote the devotional Vishnuite. 
The latter, notwithstanding so frequently seen, is, 
nevertheless, the exception rather than the rule. 
Adherence to marking is, as other things in religion, 
subject to the will being taken for the deed, and in 
this I do not know that the average Hindu differs- 
very much from the average Christian. 




XV. 

THE WAY OF THE REFORMER. 

Native movements in India looking to the Chris- 
tianizing of the people have not received encourag- 
ing cooperation on the part of the European 
Missionaries, upon whom naturally depend the 
extent of the outside support accorded. Generally 
speaking, the English Protestant Missionary goes to 
India with the conviction that he has but the one 
thing to do, and the one way to do it. There must 
be no compromising with the Devil, and he of the 
big D is incarnated in Hinduism which, to a Church 
of England man, is simply another name for heath- 
enism. No half-way measures, no acknowledgment 
of anything whatever good in the old belief. Every- 
thing inherited, hallowed and cherished by the 
Hindu must be thrown over, and at once. No use 
to continue the category, its operation as evidenced 



THE WAY OF THE REFORMER. II3 

in what has not been accomplished is the story itself. 

To go over the list of the native reformers in bio- 
graphical and historiographical detail would suffice 
little or nothing. Some of them achieved reforms, 
and it is also the fact there were those in England 
and elsewhere, good men and true, who stood nobly 
by them, and to their deep and hearty sympathy 
added contributions of a substantial volume. But, 
as a whole, there was a return poorly requiting the 
sacrifices made by those who, for their apostacy, had 
to suffer ostracism and contempt. 

Keshub Chunder Sen, a man of great force of 
character, magnetic personality and preeminent 
oratorical gifts, was the most prominent of these 
reformers of our own period, and in seeking co- 
operation in his missionary work visited Great 
Britain, where for a time much was made of him. 
In one of his public utterances, from a platform in 
Birmingham, he said, " Since my arrival in Eng- 
land I have found myself incessantly surrounded 
by various religious denominations professing to be 
Christians. Methinks I have come into a vast 



114 "^HE WAY OI^ THE REFORMER. 

market. Every sect is like a small shop where a 
peculiar kind of Christianity is offered for sale. As 
I go from door to door, from shop to shop, each sect 
steps forward and offers for my acceptance its own 
interpretation of the Bible, and its own peculiar 
Christian belief. I cannot but feel perplexed, and 
even amused amidst countless and quarreling sects. 
It appears to me, and has always appeared to me, 
that no Christian nation on earth represents fully 
and thoroughly Christ's idea of the Kingdom of 
God. I do not believe, and I must candidly say, 
that no Christian sect puts forth the genuine and 
full Christ as he was and as he is, but in some cases, 
a mutilated, disfigured Christ, and what is more 
shameful, in many cases, a counterfeit Christ. 
Now I wish to say that I have not come to England 
as one who has yet to find Christ. When the 
Roman Catholic, the Protestant, the Unitarian, the 
Trinitarian, the Broad Church, the lyow Church, 
the High Church, all come around me and offer me 
their respective Christs, I desire to say to one and 
all, think you that I have no Christ within me? 



THE WAY OF THE REFORMER. II5 

Though an Indian, I can still humbly .say, thank 
God that I have my Christ." 

Whatsoever may be the view of the pungency, 
the directness or application, there can be no differ- 
ence of opinion as to its severity being no greater 
than that which has ever marked the European 
arraignment of the belief in which Sen was born, 
and in which he lived until led to contemplate the 
faith which finally left him, practically, a religious 
nondescript. The one hierarchy as the other refused 
to acknowledge him. Similar fate befel his two 
illustrious predecessors in the reformation, the noble 
Rajah Ram Mohun Roy, who originated the move- 
ment, and his immediate successor, the gifted 
Taj ore. 

The three men in intellectuality, strength of 
character and depth of modern philosophical reason- 
ing, signalized the theocratic record of the century 
in India. With the incentive they gave, the im- 
pulse they inspired toward the principles avowed 
by the European Missionaries, and the cause as 
a whole the latter represented, there should have 



Il6 THE WAY Olf THE REFORMER. 

been a far different outcome than which distin- 
guished the close of 1800. At the least so it would 
appear to the laymen, afflicted, perhaps, with a the- 
ological blindness, hence unable to see the hairs, 
which it would seem must always be split, to deter- 
mine whether the head in which they grow is 
strictly orthodox or otherwise. 

Poor Roy ! full of enthusiasm, poetic in tempera- 
ment and imbued with a sweetness of thought and 
inspiration which have made his hymns immortal ; 
he could not fathom the coldness, the hardness and 
the absence of brotherly humanity in whom he had 
fondly anticipated warmth and fervent co-operation. 
He did not live to return to his native land, but 
scarcely in his early thirties died and was buried 
in England. His final appeal against the attacks 
to which he was subjected typifies the lofty courage 
of the man, who sincere and unshaken in his con- 
victions, would not swerve from them either in fact 
or in pretense. Those who could not enter into the 
conscientious spirit of the Rajah, insisted that in 
every point of contemplation he should coincide 



THE WAY OF THE REFORMER. II7 

with their view. This, notwithstanding the wide 
divergence in the inherited tendencies, going so long 
a way in fixing principles which trained and cul- 
tured through youth, require protracted and patient 
after care to change in direction of manifestation. 

Said Roy : "After I have relinquished my idea of 
a plurality of gods, or of the person of the Godhead, 
taught under the different systems of Modern Hin- 
duism, I cannot conscientiously and consistently 
embrace one of a similar nature, though greatly 
refined by the religious refinement of modern times. 
Since v/hatever argument can be said against a plu- 
rality of gods strikes with equal force against the 
doctrines of plurality of persons of the Godhead ; 
and on the other hand, whatever excuse may be 
pleaded in favor of a plurality of persons of the 
Deity, can be advanced with equal propriety in 
defense of polytheism." 

I am not a Unitarian, but a Trinitarian, and an 
older man than was Roy when he died. At his 
age, and later, I could not understand the Trinity, 
and in any of the several ways it is dogmatically 



ii8 the: way of the reformer. 

elucidated, or supposed to be, I question very mucli 
if I would yet be regarded as orthodox. My inclina- 
tion is to the belief that very many laymen would 
say, as I can with truth, that the original recog- 
nition of the Trinity was as of a matter of fact no 
realization at all in the actual sense of the term. 
On the contrary, it was an imbuing of faith in 
childhood that whatever mother said, whatever 
mother taught, and whatever mother exemplified in 
her own dear life, must and could not otherwise 
than be. This is the influence all powerful in the 
after life of most men. 

While to many I may appear as opposed to mis- 
sionary effort, I emphatically am not as a principle. 
It is the method, especially of my own people, or 
rather of the European Protestants, which so often 
disconcerts me. They would not have Roy with 
his Monotheism as the open pathway for his people 
to get away from imagery, or would they accept 
Tanjore who further broadened it that in the added 
light the first steps could be taken in the right 
direction. Neither would they take Sen with his 



THK WAY OF THE REFORMER. II9 

brotherhood of man, or welcome his successor, 
Mozoodam, who said, " We do accept Christ in our 
way. We regard Him as our Superior Exemplar, 
our ideal Man. He was the Spirit of God incar- 
nate — the ideal of the life of God in man. We do 
not believe this of anyone else. Moses was a good 
man, and David a devoted man, full of faith and 
trust in God. But these were only partially good. 
Paul conforms most nearly to the Christian pattern. 
Christ is the concentration and combination of all." 



XVI. 




THE SACRKDNESS OF THE CI.OTH. 

Against the priestly class in Hinduism has in- 
vective, contempt and general bitterness been so 
long the inviolable rule that the religion itself has 
come to take its name from the Brahmins, and is as 
often characterized as Brahminism as anything else. 

I have frequently remarked the finding of the 
world pretty much the same in about everything all 
over it, and with every respect for " the sacredness of 
the cloth," I cannot say, despite allowance for cir- 
cumstances which alter cases, I am in honor bound 
to make an exception in favor of the clergy. 

By the way, I saw in a newspaper the other day 
a communication severely animadverting, upon the 
declared increasing disposition these modern times 
to an irreverence for the sacredness of the cloth. 
This implied, of course, that you would know it 



THE SACRKDNKSS OF THK CT.OTH. 121 

when you saw it, and started nie to wondering as to 
the standard by which the layman is to be guided 
in the pulpit, as well as elsewhere. Is it a gown of 
white with a heavy black border, or no border at all ? 
Are the sleeves to be puffed, or are there to be no 
sleeves? Should the gow^n be a dead black gros- 
grain, with expansive black velvet front and like 
sleeve edging, or the whole simply of rich black 
silk in all the lustre of the latest fabrication? 
Perchance the colors are not fully enumerated 
and purple and fine linen should be included, 
or the other extreme gone to in the description 
— frock coat of swellest mode, double-breasted 
white vest, three-inch high standing collar, ascot 
scarf puffed by a master hand, creased trousers and 
patent leather gaiters ? For a variety, a morning 
coat or cutawa}', with light and striped trousers, 
or possibly a sack coat, even to a silken-faced 
Tuxedo ? 

All these, and more, in the way of the Sunday 
sacredness of the cloth are seen in the pulpit, while 
during the week, in the every day run of life, on 



122 'THK SACRKDNESS OI^ THE CLOTH. 

the street, in the home or at banquets, dinner 
parties, receptions, and so forth, the variation in the 
encasement of the reverend person with the con- 
ventional accessories extends the whole of the 
gamut as to colors and combinations, stripes and 
plaids, white neckties and red, negligee- shirts, tan 
hued belts and shoes, expansive shirt fronts, full 
dress suits, crush hats and pumps. 

I am speaking, it will be understood, of the 
church divisions where the manner of garb is not 
fixed by tenet or regulation, and among those where 
vestments when worn are as a rule governed by the 
stature and physical personality of the wearer. 
When the average layman notes that he rarely sees a 
small, and more or less insignificant looking man 
physically, in a gown, and, generally speaking — as it 
would appear — it is only those who don such whose 
impression in the pulpit is believed to be enhanced 
thereby, he naturally thinks the minister, as himself, 
wants to look his best on Sunday. And the minister 
is not to be blamed in the least; it being with no 
thought of adverse criticism or intention of indicat- 



THE SACREDNKSS OF THE CI.OTH. 123 

ing disapproval that his course in this respect is re- 
marked upon. One can state a fact without it neces- 
sarily implying a condemnation. Further, it is 
requisite to do so when comparisons are instituted. 

The opportunity for the latter, one observes to be 
usually increased, as the inclination to display and 
form is humored. 

It may be at first only an inappreciable departure, 
but the ornamentation throws into unfavorable light 
the bareness of the old simplicity, and almost before 
there has come a recognition of where the way leads, 
substance has been exchanged for shadow. 

No less splendid man than Philips Brooks, with 
a heart in him as great as his frame and a humanity 
grandly Christlike, writes in one of his bright and 
off-hand letters from India, that being announced 
and fully intending to preach in Trichinopoly, upon 
discovering his inability to secure a gown to suit 
him, he had to abandon his purpose. Truly he 
only could have had the modesty to entertain the 
thought it was the gown, and not himself which 
was the essential. With him it was merely the 



124 "^^^ SACRKDNESS 01^ THK CI.OTH. 

custom, and so strong its hold that the word of God 
was shelved with the insufficient paraphernalia. 

The Brahmin priest has been reproached by his 
Christian brethren from time immemorial for his 
worldliness in manner, his greediness after the ma- 
terial things of this life, his hypocritical assumption 
to control the belief of his people and his general 
disdain of true humility and purely spiritual minis- 
tration. 

I do not know in just how far this may be 
merited, but imagine, in reality no further, taking 
everything into consideration, than something after 
the same order paralleling charges might be brought 
against the clergy anywhere. 

James Freeman Clarke, speaking of the ancient 
Egyptians, says, "The priesthood enveloped in 
mystery every truth, just as they swathed the mum- 
mies, fold above fold, in preparing them for the 
tomb." And the mystery enveloping, as also the 
mummies remain. 

All men are human and those " of the cloth " are 
not made angels when consecrated. If they are 



THE SACRKDNESS OE THE CI.OTH. 1 25 

with us, as in the Protestant countries abroad, being 
more and more viewed from the worldly standpoint, 
the ministers have none to reflect upon for it so 
much as themselves. As exemplars, their position 
is one demanding the utmost circumspection in 
conduct, and if they would hold their own, they of 
all men must practice what they preach. If they 
would lead to a spiritual life, they must be spiritual, 
else Sunday becomes simply the soda water day to 
their congregations — froth and sweetness, leaving 
no bad taste in the mouth. 

I have a railway friend in the west, who for years 
sat under one of the most eloquent and distinguished 
divines, charmed by his symmetrically constructed 
and vigorously presented sentences and, through 
intimate association outside of the church, devoted 
to him personally. The years passed by, but my 
friend remained merely a member of the congrega- 
tion, apparently no thought being cherished of his 
becoming more. Then came the inevitable, the 
offer to the popular minister of a charge elsewhere 
at a largely increased compensation, and other ad van- 



126 THE SACREDNESS OF THE CI.OTH. 

tages of a substantial nature. My friend, notwithr 
standing the enjoyment of his Sunday mornings 
would be ended, and a companionship which he 
prized beyond words be severed, plumply told the 
minister he '' would be an ass " if he did not accept 
and go where he could do so much better. 

It was the thing over again which has become so 
common as to have almost reached the age to be 
regarded as a proverb, that a clergyman, like every- 
one else, is entitled to all he can get. From the 
worldly standpoint, he undoubtedly is, for his is an 
exacting-never-ending-always-in-demand-work, and 
at times is the poorest paid, and the least appreciated 
of any to which man devotes himself. If this or 
the reverse tends to worldliness, and no matter in 
what guise appearing, he does not resist it, he must 
be content to take place where sacredness is not 
considered as the first principle actuating. 

When he starts the row of bricks to toppling over, 
by vacating his pulpit for another, where he gets 
more money and has greater social and other ad- 
vantages, he knows his old church will out-bid some 



thp: sacrkdness of the cloth. 127 

other churcli and secure its pastor ; so continuing 
down the line until a dozen or more congregations 
are thrown into confusion. It may be this is not to 
be avoided. But when it is not, and the outside 
world, which rarely hears of a minister giving up 
one charge for another at a less salary, indicates 
skepticism as to the good I^ord always calling a 
man to a new field of labor where he can improve 
his material condition, there should be no sorrow 
expressed by the beneficiary, over the doubts re- 
garded palpable as to his having heard his Master 
aright. Nor should he hold up the Brahmin, or 
other far away fellow-laborer in the vineyard, to 
scorn for plucking the grapes as they ripen and can 
be reached. 



XVII. 



THE BRAHMIN AND HIS PROTOTYPES. 



There are things the Brahmin does, which others 
of "the cloth" do not, and some things they do, 
which he does not. Of the latter category might 
be cited the refraining from claiming the exclusive 
privilege of converting men into gods, or of confer- 
ing honorary degrees and titles of distinction on 
departed spirits, prerogatives regarded as of those 
of some, at the least, of the Church of England 
divines as instanced in their exercise. 

Dormer remarks, " The supposed power of priests 
over spirits has been the source of their influence 
in all religions — savage and civilized." Be this as 
it may — and my own inclination is not to acceptance 
in its widest sense — there can be no gainsaying that 
it, or something akin, is widely existent to this day 
in all lands, and with all faiths. About the person 




THE BRAHMIN AND HIS PROTOTYPES. 1 29 

of one who has been consecrated to the service of 
the Divine Master there is an atmosphere, a halo, it 
might almost be termed, which, if dispelled as evi- 
denced in the want of reverence paid him, it is his 
own course of conduct which has led to herding him 
with the crowd. 

One swallow does not make a summer, nor does a 
minister who, for sweet charity's sake, enters the 
prize ring with a professional pugilist engender the 
contemplation of the clergy, as a whole, as disposed 
to fisticuffs. There have been fighting parsons 
before, and those who have indulged in horse racing, 
while of the crimes of the decalogue there is not 
one that has not had its ministerial illustration. 
There is no severity in making this statement of 
fact, for such it is, and everyone knows it, as also 
that the disgrace to the profession in such manner 
is the very rarest, and so obvious an idiosyncrasy, 
as to attract the widest attention and remark. 
Exceptional cases are, however, continually iter- 
ated and reiterated in the published works on 
Brahminism, illustrations so cited and presented 



130 The brahmin and his prototypes. 

as to create the impression they are the rule. 
None assail them so persistently and so unspar- 
ingly as the European Missionaries, who find in 
them what is most conspicuous in themselves, the 
strenuous and uncompromising opposition to doc- 
trinal doings other than their own. As the Church 
of England man defends his dogmas against all 
comers, so the Brahmin does his, and when the 
former complains so bitterly against the hold the 
Brahmin has, and exercises over those whose faith 
he * guards, he would resent with indignation the 
assertion that his hold was the less over his chosen 
people. It is, but primarily chargeable to his sys- 
tem and not to himself. Your Church of England 
prelate is a Brahmin of the Brahmins, or would if 
he could be, and it would seem it is often because 
he cannot be, he is so intolerant of every phase of 
Brahminism. The superiority affected by the 
Brahmin, the loftiness, if I may not add also the 
superciliousness of his general demeanor, is galling 
to his conqueror, and there is unquestionably no love 
lost between them. 



THK BRAHMIN AND HIS PROTOTYPES. I31 

Here is an English — Sherving's — pen portrait of 
the typical high class Brahmin priest, " Light of 
complexion, his forehead ample, his countenance of 
striking significance, his lips thin and mouth firm 
set, his eyes quick and sharp, his fingers long, his 
carriage noble and almost sublime, the true Brah- 
min, uncontaminated by European information and 
manners, with his intense self-consciousness, with 
his proud conviction of superiority depicted in every 
muscle of his face, and manifested in every move- 
ment of his bod}^, is a wonderful spectacle of 
humanity walking on God's earth." 

We know the celerity with which a discord ma}^ 
be produced in the harmony of things clerical here 
at home, but no one can imagine how far it can be 
carried, who has not a bit of actual knowledge of 
the incessant jangling of the sweet bells, midst the 
brotherhood of man in distant India. 

The Church of England is an established or State 
Church, the Queen by law being the supreme head 
and possessing the right to name archbishops and 
bishops, there being two of the former and thirty- 



132 THE BRAHMIN AND HIS PROTOTYPKvS. 

three of the latter. She also appoints deans, canons, 
etc. Councils for the management of ecclesiastical 
affairs are summoned by the Queen's mandate and 
must have her license to deliberate, as also her 
sanction in all resolutions before they become bind- 
ing on the clergy, whose real power is therefore very 
limited. Within the Queen's gift are some 10,000 
rectorships, vicarages and curacies, while to the 
nobility and the like, there belong over 8,000 other 
places of the character, to dispense at pleasure. 

As is well known the Prime Minister is the real 
governing head of Great Britian and, as is equally 
widely understood, church places, as others, coming 
within the province of statesmen to apportion, in 
Kngland as elsewhere throughout the world, now 
and then go, as the Americanism would phrase it, 
where they will do the most good — politically 
speaking. 

The higher berths are naturally the more sought 
after, and the lower ones come in for the sons as 
may be designated for " orders." One in the family 
goes into the army, another into the navy, the third 



THK BRAHMIN AND HIS PROTOTYPES. 1 33 

into the Civil Service, the fourth may be relegated 
to law, and if there is a fifth, or perchance some 
poor relation to be provided for, the clergy is the 
recourse. If all the desirable crown berths are 
filled, then some titled friend who has a good cleri- 
cal living arranges matters satisfactorily. This is 
the general situation as it applies to about five- 
eighths of the English clergy, and the sum total of 
30,000 average up as usual, good, bad and indiffer- 
ent. To a man, practically, they entertain the same 
opinion of Brahmanism as the Brahmin hierarchy, 
about the same way constituted, entertain of the 
English system. 

If the Brahmins look out for self, in insuring such 
offerings to the gods as will provide for the wants 
of the temporal man, food, money and clothing, 
they are not unique among the clergy generally in 
this respect. They have no public treasury or 
organized congregations to draw upon at stated 
intervals — with the annual sum decided upon in 
advance ; neither have they the system of passing 
contribution plates twice a Sunday or any other 



134 'I'HK BRAHMIN AND HIS PROTOTYPES. 

day ; parsonages are not furnished or special sums 
voted them for European or other summer vaca- 
tions. They have to rely upon what they can get, 
and get it when they can. If it is every day of the 
seven it is very little each time, the aggregate at 
the best being less in a year than the fashionable 
minister often secures in a single marriage fee. 

It is true some Brahmins become rich, but not 
often, and only when they go into business or 
become the protege of some wealth}^ native. Large 
numbers of them are compelled to engage in com- 
mercial pursuits for a bare living. 

Every Brahmin is not a priest, though every 
priest is a Brahmin. They are the highest edu- 
cated, best informed and undoubtedly the most in- 
fluential of all the Hindus. Their power over 
the other castes is immeasurable, and in my judg- 
ment the systematic, and as a whole unmerited 
condemnation of their religious administration, to- 
gether with the wholesale vituperation visited upon 
them as a class by Christians, have overthrown mis- 
sion work among the masses faster than it could be 



THE BRAHMIN AND HIS PROTOTYPES. 1 35 

built Up. There may be a twentieth of one per cent, 
of the Hindus — a hundred and twenty-five thousand 
— to show as presumable converts to Protestantism 
as the result of a half century's labor, and the expendi- 
ture of millions of dollars ; but it is very much to be 
questioned if a further division of one-half — or sixty 
thousand — would not be a large estimate of the 
actual Trinitarians. It appears almost inexplicable 
that there should have been found such a difficulty 
in bringing the Hindus to a notion of the Trinity, 
when through their own faith and its exposition, 
in their inherited, whatever it may be called, they 
so run to the mystical three. Monier Williams 
says : " More than one Christian writer has 
pointed out how remarkable is the Hindu trinity of 
entities, compared with the Trinitarian doctrine of 
God the Father, who is the author of all existence, 
God the Son, who is the source of all wisdom and 
knowledge, and God the Holy Spirit, who is the 
source of all joy." 

Nearly all their gods are but little other than 
modifications of the trio of principal personifica- 




136 THE BRAHMIN AND HIS PROToTYPEvS. 

tions. It is conjectured that the three Sanscrit 
letters combining to form the sacred syllable ex- 
pressive in English as '' Om," and afterward typical 
of the Brahmin trinity, were originally the initial 
letters of gods, — Fire, Wind and Sun. In the 
primitive Aryan association of the forms of the sun 
there was the trio Aryaman, Varuna and Mitra, 
while the triple combination figured generally in 
their adorations. In the great caves of Elephanta 
at Bombay there is a strikingly impressive idol — 
three majestic heads springing from a single body. 
The triangle is a prominent symbolization of the 
triune co-equality, while in the dogmas of the 
Hindu system the number three continually recurs. 
The poets sang of " The Blessed Three " and the 
Hindu Triad is Brahma, the Creator ; Vishnu, the 
Preserver ; and Siva, the Reproducer. 



XVIII. 



ACCORDING TO THEIR UGHT. 

"But," say you, "from what has been told me 
concerning the personality of the higher class Brah- 
min — the man who would have to be directly dealt 
with in order to insure anything approaching a com- 
ity of intercourse — is not a particularly agreeable 
chap, when not allowed to have his own way in 
everything." 

My dear fellow, did you ever have to do with 
a high dignitary of your own church, where you 
had to cross him in that upon which he had set his 
mind? Or a popular pastor who, with no idea 
whatever of the value of money, planned for its 
expenditure in such a manner as he believed would 
best facilitate his work ? 

Never having had contact with the worldly world, 
thus contradistinguishing his seminary life and 




138 ACCORDING TO THEIR LIGHT. 

early entrance upon pastoral duties, from that of the 
man who from youth has had to withstand every- 
thing coming along, to get a foothold and keep it 
when on every side were those equally placed, reach- 
ing for the same dollar. Only seeing the better 
side of the individual existence turned toward him 
— the good behavior aspect — and expounding a 
worldly morality he gets out of books, but of the 
seamy underneath of which he can perforce have 
no actual knowledge, the minister is as apt to be in 
the clouds in business, as he is in theology. He will 
say things on the spur of the moment to which he 
has no thought of being held, his ethics as to the 
understanding of what his assurances may appear 
now and subsequently, being as he often is himself, 
decidedly visionary. 

The minister who, after acquiring widespread 
influence among his people, large numbers of whom 
follow him as the sheep keep to the shepherd, sud- 
denly and without warning abandons them, is add- 
ing immensely to the solemn responsibilities he 
assumed at his ordination. 



ACCORDING TO THEIR LIGHT. 1 39 

Meanwhile souls, like lawn tennis balls, go sail- 
ing through the air of uncertainty, not knowing in 
whose racquet they will next land, and oftentimes as 
indifferent as the inanimate spheres to the chances. 

Very far from intentionally equivocal or wilfully 
illusory by any interpretation of the term, is the 
reverend changling. It is his way, and in it is 
what he is so much of his life, the creature of cod- 
dling, humoring and flattery. We doubtless would 
all be petted parsons if we could, and probably as 
impracticable in things material. The Brahmin is 
ten thousand miles away, but his prototype is much 
nearer home. 

I have talked on in the hope of creating an at- 
mosphere which would be recognized, and thus, 
rather than through detailed description, bring 
about a comprehension of the situation in India. 
When one looks into a mirror, the reflective side 
toward him, he sees ; but when he gets it back 
frontward, so to speak, it is opaque and useless. 

I would not for a moment advance the thought 
that the Brahmin, in all going to make the man of 



140 ACCORDING TO THEIR I.IGHT. 

God, is the equal of the average Christian minister. 
With what the former has had to contend, such 
would be a sad commentary upon the latter with 
the advantages he has enjoyed. 

The Brahmin, according to his light, is an ad- 
vanced, a philosophical and often a most erudite 
man, and, as a whole, he is not the scheming 
"rascal," "villain," "robber," "devil," or other in 
the missionary category of epithets, so freely em- 
ployed. Were he so, the nation which the clergy 
most addicted to the practice referred to, boasts 'of 
representing, must find itself in an anomalistic 
position when calling upon such stamp of man, to 
help it in its stress. 

It is within a recent period the English authori- 
ties caused to be cabled broadcast throughout the 
world, the press dispatch giving the interesting 
details of the conference of Brahmin priests, ar- 
ranged at Calcutta by the government of India. 
At it, prayers were made to Brahma for the especial 
protection of Great Britain's army in South Africa, 
as also for the peace of mind and continued good 



ACCORDING TO THEIR UGHT. 141 

health of the Empress-Queen. Mention was made 
in the cablegram, of the presents by the govern- 
ment of her Majesty, of costly shawls to the of- 
ficiating priests, and in every manner eclat and 
impressiveness were added to the religious demon- 
stration. Granted, that all this was for effect upon 
the millions of Hindus within the Empire, rather 
than upon the world at large, this in no wise alters 
the fact, that the course taken was by a great Chris- 
tian country, through its highest dignitaries, and at a 
time when the friend in need, coerced or complacent, 
was friend indeed. 




XIX. 

THE NERVE OF THE JOGEE. 

Probably in no one respect is Hinduism more 
widely misunderstood through the representations 
made of its principles, than as regards its practices. 
From our pulpits, one usually hears the religion 
of the Hindus summed up as the absorption of self 
into idiocy, the inane concentration of the vision 
upon nothingness, and complete inactivity of the 
body to the point of paralysis. This is about as 
common in India as the strained conceptions enter- 
tained in Christian lands, of the highest spiritualism 
of the Gospels. 

In all religions there has been, still is and ever 
will be, asceticism, but it is exceptional in every one 
of them, and in none is relatively less the rule than 
in Hinduism. 

Christians naturally object, and very rightly, to 



THK NERVK OF THK J0GE:E. 1 43 

having their faith painted on the lines of Simeon 
Stylites perched upon a lofty pillar, and in sun- 
shine and darkness, as through cold and heat, dying 
by inches that only through such sacrifice of body, 
mind and soul, salvation can be assured. Nor are 
they willing that Peter the Hermit, with his 80,000 
"soldiers of the cross," his rope about the waist, 
sandals upon the feet, and in front of him the sacred 
goose and the sacred goat — both believed to be filled 
with the Holy Ghost — shall, in his pilgrimage to 
Jerusalem, be held as typifying the best and dearest 
in their belief. The flagellants of Italy, of France, 
of Germany, of Bohemia, of Poland, of Bavaria and 
of other Christian countries, large as their numbers 
from time to time, and bare as their bodies when 
through streets and highways their inspiration led 
them, cannot be considered typical of all of those, 
the basis of whose faith is even now, as was 
theirs. 

The present day in Protestant as in every coun- 
try, there are widely contrasting idealisms as to the 
life which must be led to insure the purest exem- 



144 'I'HK NERVE OF THE JOGEE. 

plification of scriptural teachings. The thoughtful 
man may well pause and ponder over phases of 
human existence, which by no possible phantasy 
of the imagination could he himself enter upon. 

It exacts of a man a superhuman nerve to delib- 
erately upstretch an arm and keep it so, while every 
drop of blood runs out of the veins, the flesh dries 
and shrivels up, the muscles strain and break, and 
the bones decompose. The control of the mental 
over the physical in an exhibition of this nature, as 
seen in India, is an astonishing demonstration, and 
misguided, utterly to be pitied as is the man, his 
courage is simply beyond the power of an ordinary 
mortal to appreciate. Swinging from a hook fas- 
tened in the muscles of the back, thrusting knives 
through the limbs, or into the body, the cutting off 
of fingers and other self mutilation, even to the 
extreme of producing death, is harrowing to con- 
template. Such subjection demands a stoicism and 
indifference to physical pain phenomenal in human 
kind, but compared to these inflictions, confined as 
they are to a period of time frequently of only an 



THE NERVE O^ THE JOGEE. 145 

hour or more duration, the maintaining of the arm 
upright as indicated ; the standing upon one leg 
until the other withers and hangs lifeless and mis- 
shapen ; the clenching of the hand, until the growing 
nails slowly penetrate through the flesh and appear 
on the opposite or upper side ; as also the lying per- 
fectly motionless in one position to the stage of com- 
plete muscular rigidity, is marvelous endurance. 
The torture drawn out interminably, the physical 
agony of the rebellion of the body against the de- 
privation of its functions, the writhing of the muscles 
in the diverting of their use, and the resentment of 
the blood in being stopped in its circulation, must 
in the prolongation be indescribably anguishing. 

One may say what he will of another's voluntarily 
condemning himself to a physical hell beyond a 
Dante to portray, but the spectacle must remain a 
solemnly reflective one, as the realization is enforced 
of the extreme to which faith in the unseen 
can carry mankind. It is beyond doubt that, 
through physical suffering and mental concentra- 
tion, these ascetics reach a stage of exaltation, 



146 THE NERVE OV THE JOGEE. 

which is spiritual — in the sense of its being un- 
worldly — to a degree none other can conceive. 

It is the common practice of Europeans to look 
upon these ''Jogees" — "united to God" — as af- 
fectations, impostors and deliberately deceiving 
rascals, who live on the credulity and superstition 
of the populace. They are by no means all to be 
so classed. 

At the larger festival seasons in Benares, Puri, 
Madura and other chief centres of Hinduism there 
are unquestionably numbers of tricksters, men who 
for the time being smear themselves with ashes, 
daub paint upon the face and expose the person to 
seeming cruelty in order to reap a harvest among 
the unwary. These are scoundrels of the type who 
in large gatherings here pick pockets, work three 
card monte swindles, play the bunko game, and in 
ways and through means with which civilization 
abounds, hoodwink and rob without com.punction. 



XX. 

PHILOSOPHICAL DEPTHS. 

As in the Christian monasteries and retreats, 
there are men of the highest and noblest impulses, 
those ranking in intellectual acquirements and depth 
of mind with their fellows in the most advanced 
walks of every day life, so in the similar institutions 
of Hinduism are men of the mental calibre and 
brain capacity to command respect. It is not for 
us to always question their motives, their piety and 
their devotion. Our own would doubtless suffer if 
tested by rigid and unsparing scrutiny. 

From the ranks of the " Jogees " have come many 
of the movements through which Hinduism has 
been carried to a closer affinity with the march of 
time. Comparatively few of them become, what 
we term fanatical, in the excess of self-torture 
through mutilation or the prolongation of suffer- 



.'4 



148 PHILOSOPHIC AI. DEPTHS. 

ing as indicated. There are four principal orders, 
membership in which compels the. renouncing of 
the world and embracing vows of poverty and 
mendicancy. Subsistence is upon herbs and fruits, 
all worldly concern is abandoned, and the one 
object sought is the purification of the mind in 
solitude, thus awaiting the time of absorption with 
the Supreme Spirit. To them life is evil and the 
body the abode of sorrow and sin, hence their chief 
aim is to insure an oblivion to the world and the 
complete severence of affection for it and all with 
it having to do. 

This is the higher aspect of self absorption, the 
spiritual demonstration of the doctrine of Atman — 
self — around and about which the mysticism of the 
illusionary and meditative revolves and as we get 
astray in the effort to solve our mysteries, so does 
the Hindu with his. And he realizes in his actual 
life the loftiest standards and exemplifies the higher 
conception of the basis of his belief, just about as 
we do in ours. I^ike ourselves, the average Hindu 
is good, or tries to be, because it is ingrained into 



PHILOSOPHICAI. DEPTHS. 1 49 

him, as in every mortal upon earth, that there is 
a Supreme Power and to be happy here and here- 
after there must be a deference to It. 

'' Self is the witness of self," explains the I^aw 
of Manu. "Self is the refuge of self. Do not 
despise thy own self, the highest witness of men." 
In his own self or "Atman " the Brahmin recognizes 
the limited reflection of the Highest Self-Divine 
Being. Says Miiller : " The knowledge of the self 
is really the highest goal of the Veda. The high- 
est wisdom of Greece was '^ to know ourselves ; " 
the highest wisdom of India is "to know our self." 
To this one might add, our main, if not our highest 
goal, would seem to be to know how we appear to 
others. " If thou thinkest thou art self alone," 
again say the Law of Manu, "remember there is 
a silent thinker always within thy heart and He 
sees what is good and what is evil." 

Hindus, when they from time to time reach our 
shores and consent to explain their doctrines and 
subtile philosophical reasonings, are given to the 
attempt to do so from our standpoint instead of 



150 PHILOSOPHICAI. DEPTHS. 

their own, endeavoring to make Hinduism fit in 
with Christianity by dwelling most upon what they 
think conforms more nearly to the latter. Gener- 
ally speaking, this is a fallacy and culminates in 
a confusion worse, as a rule, than before anything 
at all was said. The two faiths cannot be coupled, 
for the conditions out of which they spring and 
have vitality are so wholly at variance as to make 
it impossible. We can no more comprehend Hindu- 
ism, when remaining Christian in the view of it, 
than can the Hindu from the standpoint of Hindu- 
ism, fathom Christianity. Each must get out of 
himself, so to speak, and into the other, and then it 
will be acknowledged there is good in both beliefs. 
Monier Williams says : *' Most Hindu thinkers 
agree that the spirit of the soul — the self— is eternal, 
both retrospectively and prospectively. The Spirit 
of God and the spirit of man must have existence 
and must continue to exist for all eternity. The 
two not really distinct, but identical with God." 
Hindu philosophers also appear to agree that the 
mind is distinct from spirit and soul ; mmd not 



PHII.OSOPHICAI, DEPTHS. 151 

being eternal in the same way. Miiller makes clear 
the general condition in explaining : " That Self, the 
Highest Self, can only be discovered after a severe 
moral and intelligent discipline, and those who have 
not yet discovered it, are to reverence lower gods 
and to employ more poetical names to satisfy their 
human wants." 

Not a believer in the doctrine of natural total 
depravity, the more I see of peoples who have not 
had the advantages of modern civilization to enable 
them to encompass the superfine perception upon 
which such divination is founded, the greater is 
my inclination to the opinion that man as God 
made him had attributes which have been sadly 
warped in the refashioning to fit present conditions. 



XXL 

THE HINDU AND HIS HEI.I.. 

Instead of the Hindu being the inactive, un- 
demonstrative, illusionary and meditative indi- 
vidual in his religious belief, which has long been 
the popular impression, he is as diametrically the 
opposite as possible to imagine. In religious ob- 
servances, in the performance of religious duties, in 
the showing of his religious faith by his religious 
deeds, he is incomparably the most actively religious 
man in the world. 

As Wilkins says : "It would be almost impos- 
sible to find in all India a man as grossly ignorant 
of the ways and doings of the chief deities as some 
in England are ignorant of Jesus Christ and His 
Apostles." It is a noticeable fact," the reverend 
doctor at an other time remarks, "that although 
most of the people cannot read, taken as a whole. 




THE HINDU AND HIS HELL. 1 53 

they know far more of Hinduism than the masses 
in England know about Jesus Christ and the Old 
and New Testament Saints." Mr. Wilkins is by 
no means partial to Hinduism. The mental images 
in his religion are all saints, while the graven ones 
of the Hindu are all idols. Bettany says : *' To 
a greater extent than any other under the sun the 
Hindus are a religious people. To treat of the ordi- 
nary life of the Hindu, is to describe the Hindu 
religion," and as Farver notes: ''Though they 
know not even the name of Moses, yet know they 
the God of Moses." 

Monier Williams explains : " No stranger can 
become a convert to Hinduism, either by confession 
of faith or going through any form. The only 
acknowledged mode of admission is by birth. To 
become a Hindu, one must be born a Hindu." 

Before his body has the breath of life breathed 
into it by emergence into the world, religious rites 
have upon several occasions been observed with 
special application to his personality. No sooner 
in the world than they commence with direct regard 



154 'I'HK HINDU AND HIS HEl.Iv. 

to his own participation, and lie keeps up the con- 
stantly multiplying demands for individual exer- 
tion through life, while long after death his de- 
scendants continue the round by proxy as it were. 

It is only the especially gifted, intellectually, and 
those profound in metaphysical reasoning, who can 
grasp the deductions reached in the doctrinal defi- 
nitions through which the individual soul merges 
into the Supreme Soul. Not one in ten thousand 
ever give this a thought, but in the realism, as natural 
to the masses as breathing, there is a comprehension 
in the tangible portrayal upon every side of the 
possible which carries conviction : hence pure specu- 
lation is not cultivated. 

The Hindu's hell is a most real one, and is all 
around and about him. It may be on two feet or 
four, have wings, a hide of hair or coating of feath- 
ers : indeed may creep, jump or fly, sport horns or 
keep beneath the ground, glide through water or 
skim upon the surface. 

Heaven as well, is as near perhaps. It having 
shapes with v/hich there is familiarity and an ap- 



THE HINDU AND HIS HKLI.. 1 55 

plication of conditions, as clearly defined as there is 
in tlie other instance. 

There are in the world a good many imaginings 
as to heaven, and a very decided assortment of theo- 
ries as to hell. Were I to be asked my opinion as 
to the governing influence in its operation upon the 
life of the Hindu, and if not the mystical soul 
absorption, what it really is, I should unhesitat- 
ingly say the intensely rationalistic belief in trans- 
migration. 

There is a hellish period in direct relation, but as 
it is merely probationary, the Hindu is not in quak- 
ing terror as to finding himself at death stumbling 
over a plain paved with iron spikes, or filled with 
pools of fetid mud. Neither is he much concerned 
at the prospect of being in terrific darkness, boiled 
in superheated oil, prodded with red hot irons, 
thrown into pits of blazing charcoal, or into wells 
of blood. To be in an impenetrable forest where 
the leaves are sharp swords, and everything touch- 
ing the person piercing and pinching ; or mayhap 
be torn by swine, thrust head downward in seething 



156 THE HINDU AND HIS HELI<. 

mud, and otherwise physically tormented to the end 
of the chapter — so familiar where rein is given to the 
play of Dantesque fancy — has no shivering dread 
for the Hindu. There may be, as he is told there 
is, a hundred thousand hells, but what are they to 
eternity ? 

He has seen men voluntarily take upon them- 
selves all the bodily suffering his hells picture, and, 
were such punishment the only certainty of his 
sins, he knows how comparatively readily he could 
adapt himself to it. 

- Never was there a graver error than that which 
has resulted from the specious arguments ad- 
vanced by those whose reasoning is superficial, that 
in Hinduism — precept and practice — there is no 
actual recognition of sin. It is the burden of the 
Hindu's life. For what he does he knows he will 
be judged. Sins of omission he may not so clearly 
comprehend, or those either which are visited upon 
the innocent, as taught by Christians, holding the 
death of the unbaptized infant as its certain con- 
demnation to the tortures of the damned through- 



THE HINDU AND HIS HKlvI.. 1 57 

out eternity. Of the enormity of the sins of com- 
mission, he lives in terrible realization, and is ever 
seeking a mediator, and creating one out of every 
manifestation in which he can conceive an attribute 
of the Only One and All Powerful Judge. His 
first prayer upon rising is, '* Whatever sin I have 
committed by night, in thought, word or deed, may 
it be cancelled by day. Whatever sin is in me may 
it be forever removed." 



XXII. 

FOREVER STALKS. 

The belief in tlie passing of the soul at death to 
a further embodiment in other living things, in the 
abstract is not peculiar to the Hindu, or is it es- 
pecially so to the Eastern peoples as a whole. All 
of us appear to have a touch of the excogitative 
in such direction, and an honest confession would 
show that now and then almost everybody is in- 
clined to a little rioting of the imagination with 
metempsychosis the centre and circumference. 

It was not unknown in the early days of Chris- 
tianity. Several Fathers of the Church openly ad- 
vocated the reasonableness of the theory with New 
Testament quotations to support it. Plato was 
drawn to it, as also other ancients of classical 
renown. Justin Martyr's advocacy was of a thou- 
sand years spent in a restored and beautified Jerusa- 




I^ORKVKR STAI^KS. 1 59 

iem, which TertuUian assented to, with the added 
transport, that the city was to be divinely built and 
let down from heaven. 

Latter day arguments have found those who could 
be swayed by them to regard the transmigration 
form of purgatory as the more rational, and in 
greater conformity with God's general plan of 
progression, than the more or less dormant condition 
ascribed to other purgatorial processes. However, 
these, at the best merely inferential propositions, by 
no means illustrate the Hindu position on the ques- 
tion. In fact, to him there is no question to be 
entertained. It is an absolute certainty. 

There is no appreciable difference in the religious 
man as concerns his faith in God, between the one 
way there may be prescribed to attain to Him, or 
another. Because the Hindu has little or no fear 
of hell fire and brimstone, or knowledge of ortho- 
dox, heterodox or any other of the popular — so to 
speak — doctrines of a physical punishment as the 
sequence of a sinful life, it does not follow his 
aversion is any the less to taking the chances of 



l6o FOREVER STAI.KS. 

a visitation upon him of the result of misconduct. 

I am inclined to the thought that considering the 
Hindu as he is, with his shuddering horror of per- 
sonal defilement, his stickling for caste, his princi- 
ples of purification and his innumerable supersti- 
tions as to evil influences, his is the most unmitigated 
hell conceivable. To think of his soul passing into 
a loathsome animal, and thence by stages, extend- 
ing through uncountable years, only reaching the 
point of the contemplation of comparative beati- 
tude, is a nightmare where, with our common belief 
in mere bodily torture, his sleep would be filled 
with Blysian dreams. It is the mental in the hell 
of the Hindu which so powerfully influences, and 
in refinement of conceit as to the actual concomi- 
tants of human misery, the far off Eastern philoso- 
pher is infinitely in advance of his Lutheristic, 
Calvinistic or Wesleyistic contemporaries. 

In the Hindu's heaven there is peace, perfect con- 
tentment and association with the favored of God. 
Even in this bliss there are gradations, for in pro- 
portion to the good deeds done on earth, will be the 



FORKVER STAI.KS. l6l 

reward in heaven. For the wicked, who through 
long and painful stages in expiation of their evil 
acts, have finally succeeded in attaining entrance to 
the blessed, to at once reach equality with the pure 
and good whose life on earth was above reproach, 
is utterly repugnant to the Hindu belief. He could 
never be made to see the justice of such mercy or 
understand the Divinity of a love so transcendent. 
It is not with him God is lyove, but that God is 
Justice. 

"Superstitious?" Yes, the Hindu undoubtedly 
is, and very much so. Yet, sometimes I think that, 
making allowances for conditions, he is not im- 
measurably more so than ourselves. He has spirits, 
we have angels, largely meaning the same, only in 
consonance with his naturalness he reproduces his 
to view, visibly, while we are content, as a rule, to 
picture ours in mind. He has demons, we have 
imps, evil influences or whatever they may be 
termed. In him conscience materializes into de- 
fined shapes which permit visual contemplation, 
and through it inspire physical fear; in us con- 



1 62 FOREVER STALKS. 

science impels to mental realization, often causing 
the horror which leads to the frenzied plunge to 
death. The Hindu keeps the symbolization of the 
good to stimulate, and of the bad to deter him, ever 
before the eye. Both are materialized into reality 
by the attributes he assigns them. With us the 
process is the reverse, we have the mental, not the 
visible monitors. Our Banquo's Ghost will down, 
theirs will not, but forever stalks. 

According to the Hindu idea the corporeal organ- 
ization of the genus of demons stands midway 
between men and gods. This is Monier Williams' 
definition of the relation. All Hindus do not so 
reason, but as we generally regard the prevalence of 
superstition as due to the want of education, and 
existing almost wholly in the lower classes, so will 
he argue is the situation in his country. However 
it may be, largely of that which we regard as super- 
stitious in the Hindus, is not really so when brought, 
as it should be, in juxtaposition with their traits of 
character generally. In us it would, undoubtedly, 
be superstition, although the Spiritualists and 



FOREVER STALKS. 1 63 

other sects, which appear to have very recently 
gained a remarkable public favor may be expected 
to strenuously dispute this assertion. We have 
much in our own religious literature requiring more 
or less heavy drafts upon our faith to accept in the 
strictly literal sense. In the Hindus there is no 
strain in the absorption, and they believe every- 
thing read or told them. More than this, repetition 
straightway leads to materialization, and thus the 
Hindu pantheon, or image language museum, aug- 
mxcnts endlessly. 

Had they the Talmud, the I^eviathan, his killing 
and cooking, as also the marriage of Adam with 
Lilith before the creation of Eve, would, in realistic 
features, rival Mrs. Jarley's wax works. Imagine 
the opportunity for effect in idols, the diabolical 
progeny of that marriage, as set forth in the Jewish 
legend, would inspire ! 

Rowe says : '^ Such subjects as historical and 
theoretical Hinduism, the origin of castes, Brah- 
minism. Devil Worship, Thuggism and Sutteeism, 
have but small share in the daily life of the people 



164 FOREVER STALKS. 

of India." They have none too much time at the 
best to get along and make a living. It would be 
as unfair to them, as a whole, as it would be to lis, 
to rake up all the exceptional instances of super- 
stition, fanaticism and fatalism, and so present them 
as to lead to the impression they were typical of the 
people as a people. 



XXIII. 



HE GUARDS AS HE REVERES. 



In part, at the least, the practical operation of the 
fundamental Hindu doctrine, every man independ- 
ent of his religious belief or worldly surroundings, 
cannot other than subscribe to, as worthy of emula- 
tion where civilization is the highest and Christ- 
ianity furthest advanced. Kindness to every living 
thing subordinated to man's domination is the 
keynote of Hinduism. The Hindu not knowing 
whose soul may be in the dog crossing his path, 
feeds instead of kicks him. The fly tickling his 
nose may have within its tiny body the soul of 
a loved and lost child, and is gently brushed away 
with an inward prayer that no harm shall come to 
it. The pigeon flying over his, head may be the 
living casket bearing his mother's soul, and every 
feather it has is sacred. So his departed father may 



-& 



f§ ^ii 



% 



1 66 HE GUARDS AS HE REVERES. 

have found rest for his soul in the silver-sided fish 
which is so tame it will come to the hand for food. 
All life is sacred, because in all life God is mani- 
fested, and man, as the greatest of all earthly 
manifestations, is but doing God's work in caring 
for His own. 

The cow has the larger sanctity among animals, 
for through her God gives more generously than in 
any other creature the food and drink which con- 
stitute man's principal subsistence. There is an 
intermingling of reverence, thanksgiving and a fear 
of injury which render the real India of the In- 
dians — the sections away from the European cen- 
tres, the paradise of created things. Birds fill the 
air, fish animate the streams, the woods teem with 
animal kind, and the fields are flecked with insect 
life. Unmolested, undisturbed, going hither and 
thither at will, helping themselves to whatever may 
offer, and gently made way for, rather than forced 
aside, apprehension of man in the form so familiar 
is unknown. To have a sleek, fat bull in the 
potato patch, a motherly looking cow tramping the 



HE GUARDS AS HE REVERES. 1 67 

young rice plants out of all recognition, or, per- 
chance, a flock of crows snatching the seeds of the 
sower before they can reach the ground, would 
exhaust the patience of the most devout of deacons ; 
but the Hindu accepts it all without a thought of 
vexation. He does not know whose soul is thus 
to be sustained, or how soon his own maybe so 
seeking. i\ll this is viewed as the rankest improv- 
idence by the European masters of the land and as 
silly beyond expression by the average tourist, who, 
having eyes to see, does not see. 

In very much of the Hindu reverence for all 
things created by the Maker, there is also a practi- 
cability which proves him a rational, as well as a 
reverent being. He guards as he reveres. Heal- 
ing plants, vines having medicinal qualities and trees 
which succor and shade him, present twofold causes 
for his acknowledg-ment of their orig-in. 

In the Hindu village is the sacred Pipal tree, the 
music of the rustling leaves of which, is believed 
to so delight the gods that they remain amid its 
branches. Under this tree disputes between the 



1 68 HE GUARDS AS HE REVERES. 

villagers are often settled upon the evidence given, 
when those in interest vow themselves to the truth 
by the crushing of a leaf in the hand, calling at the 
same time upon the god sitting above to crush all 
most dear if affirmations are false. With the care 
bestowed upon them, the sacredness in which they 
are guarded, these trees attain very great age, some 
of them being claimed to exceed two thousand years. 
Trees with shreds of cloth flying from them— rit- 
uals in rags might not be a misnomer in terming 
them — are frequently seen and, as Dorman says : 
" The way to spirit land over the tree or vine has 
been found as satisfactory to the Hindu as was the 
ladder of Jacob to the ancient Hebrew." 

The Bilva plant is venerated for the astringent 
qualities of its leaf, presumed to be essential in the 
service of Siva. There is a wide difference of opin- 
ion as to the Soma plant, the most sacred of all 
growth to the Hindu, still being known in India. 
Of the creeper family, with a succulent, leafless 
stem, carrying a berry which, when pressed and 
drunk, was supposed to confer health. Poets in- 



HH GUARDS AS HK REVERES. 1 69 

culcated the thought of the Soma bestowing im- 
mortality upon its consumers, and that it was the 
vital sap which vivified the world. It was pre- 
requisite at every sacrifice in the ancient days ; is 
mentioned in the Vedic books, and tradition has it 
that, in consequence of the prevalence of sin in the 
world. Soma now grows only in Heaven. This we 
are not in position to verify, but it is the fact, 
nevertheless, that it is said to be yet cultivated, but 
very secretively, in India, in order, as it is claimed, 
to prevent the Europeans adding to their present 
assortment of intoxicating beverages. 

The Tulasia, so often seen in various forms of 
receptacles in the home of the Hindu, as also in 
their court yards, is of domestic veneration every- 
where. It is a small shrub, the sanitary properties 
of which, together with the medical virtue of the 
leaves, rendering it truly a household treasure. 
Kusa grass is always in evidence at religious cere- 
monies, being strewn on the ground in advance 
of sacrificial rites. The love and reverence for 
flowers, as demonstrated in their profuse use upon 



170 HE GUARDS AS HE REVERES. 

all religious occasions, tends inestimably to reliev- 
ing the general aspect of services whicli would 
otherwise to the European eye have nothing artistic 
or picturesque in them. 

India is preeminently the land of flowers, the 
queen of all being the I^otus. It has been the theme 
of much in Hindu poetry of beauty and refinement. 
Vishnu is represented seated upon the Lotus in the 
midst of water, and it is also peculiarly sacred to 
his consort, Lakshmir, who is sometimes. Das says, 
called Kamela or Lotus. It is the favorite offering 
at the temples, and its reproduction is ever found 
upon the brass vessels used in the service. Birds 
are symbolical with the Hindu as with us, and parrots 
taught to repeat the sacred name of Krishna are 
greatly petted. 

There has been amusement at the expense of the 
Hindu for his veneration of the monkey and the 
building of a temple to him in the hol}^ city of 
Benares. Some have argued that in this there is a 
recognition of the Darwinian theory of the descent 
of man, but such is absurd. One has merely to 




HK GUARDS AS HE REVERES. 171 

understand the Hindu poetry to comprehend how 
the monkey secured the place he has in the fealty 
of the people. Hannman's aid to Rama will never 
be forgotten, and he is supposed to have been the 
leader of an aborigine tribe closely resembling 
monkeys. This being as near as the Hindu can get 
to the materialization he follows his natural bent 
and illustrates in form, animate or inanimate, as 
the opportunity may offer. There is a hospital at 
Bombay for sick or wounded animals, where they 
are cured, if possible, and if not, kindly cared for 
until they die. The providing of wells and troughs 
for animals is regarded as a religious duty, and 
widespread is the belief in the immortality of the 
souls of all animal kind. 



XXIV. 



POUNDS, SHII.UNGS AND PENCE. 




We have heard a great deal of the advantages 
Christian civilization has conferred upon India. 
How the natives are so much better off now than 
formerly, and that system and order have replaced 
the old-time disorganization under the rapacious 
sway of the native rulers and princes. 

Turning to the Statesman's Year Book for 1899, 
the highest English authority for statistics of the 
kind, it will be found that the government's largest 
single item of revenue was the ninety-two millions 
of dollars from land tax, it and the twenty-nine 
millions received from duties on salt, which is a 
governmental monopoly, coming from the tillers of 
the soil. Add to these items the eighteen millions of 
dollars in support of the opium monopoly, and the 
twenty millions liquor excise receipts, and a hundred 






# 



POUNDS, SHILUNGS AND PENCE. 1 73 

and sixty millions of the three hundred and thirty 
millions of revenue, all told, are accounted for. 
Seventy-three millions are credited to railway re- 
ceipts, while ten and a half millions were received 
in irrigation dues— water furnished by the govern- 
ment and paid for by the natives. 

And what did the government do with the two 
hundred and fifty millions of dollars so received 
from the native population ? Expended a hundred 
and fifty-five millions of it for the army, civil salary 
list and civil charges — very nearly one-half of the 
entire revenue. Of the balance, ten and a half 
millions were spent on the irrigation system ; eighty 
millions on the railways, while to the famine fund 
"and other insurance," three and three-quarter mil- 
lions were appropriated. 

There are no means of reliably ascertaining the 
sums in detail, or in their entirety, exacted from 
the people, as a whole, under the old regime. They 
were undoubtedly very large, but the disbursement 
was as certainly upon a corresponding scale, and 
where money came easy to the Oriental potentate it 



174 POUNDS, SHII.LINGS AND PENCE. 

went easy for his gratification. It was spent among 
those from whom it was taken and not divided with 
outsiders. 

I am not saying the natives are the worse or the 
better off. It is speculative, at the best, for what 
might now have become their condition, had not the 
policy of the Christian absorption of the weaker into 
the stronger been pursued as it has been and contin- 
ues, is, as a matter of course, beyond dem^onstra- 
tion. 

What I am getting at is that now, no more than 
at any other period of the English occupation of 
India, is it based upon philanthropic principles, or 
other than the purely commercial. 

Church people who know nothing of India save 
that it is heathen, and therefore the place to send 
their missionary mite, have an idea Christian Eng- 
land is there, and hence the banner of the Saviour 
is the s^anbol of guidance. "In God we Trust" 
has about the significance in India it has upon 
our silver dollar, which intrinsically is not worth 
half it says it is, on the other side. Christianity is, 



POUNDS, SHII.LINGS AND PENCE. 1 75 

as the American coin, merely a token, and if it ma}^ 
be said of tlie Englisli as to India, "By this sign we 
conquer," the motto is very like many others, only 
words and nothing more. 

To the credit of the consistency of the English- 
man in India, let it be said that neither by deed or 
word has he ever indicated other than the original 
purpose which carried him to the Far East — 
pounds, shillings and pence. 

First in 1601, when by royal decree the East 
Indies Company was authorized to raise the flag of 
England over Java as the notification to all con- 
cerned, that the country had been taken possession 
of for commercial aggrandizement. It happened, 
however, the ancestors of the sturdy Boers, who 
are now having a smoky argument with the Britons 
in South Africa, the Dutch, claimed a priority of 
right to trade control in the Malay Archipelago. 
The outcome was the English flag was hauled down 
in Java, it with the governmental organization, and 
the East Indies Company being transferred to Singa- 
pore. 



176 POUNDS, SHILWNGS AND PENCE. 

The closing years of the century marked the 
securing of a firm foothold in India through a deal 
with a native prince of Calcutta, and early in 1700 
the Bast India Company came into active existence. 
Behind it was the power of the English govern- 
ment, ever alert, then as now, to, by every means 
within its grasp, advance the purely business pros- 
perity of its people. When special legislation 
appeared requisite to this end it was forthwith 
enacted. The army and the navy, as well as every 
other governmental arm, to coax, impress and force 
acquiescence, was ready, on demand, to enlarge the 
"sphere of influence," until where the East India 
Company left off and the British government com- 
menced, or vice versa^ has not been answered to this 
day. 

Suffice it to say that by fair means or foul, and 
there is still a wide divergence of opinion as to the 
one and the other, the whole of India was made the 
Englishman's bailiwick. 

Up to a half century or little more ago, he would 
not permit even his own missionaries to come in. 



POUNDS, SHILUNGS AND PENCE. 1 77 

and at all great native functions, where the con- 
gregating of vast multitudes enabled the practical 
demonstration of the advantages of the new civili- 
zation, the army was paraded and other brilliant 
features of Christian government added to lend 
attraction to the occasions. The liquor imports 
increased enormously, as also the demand for opium, 
which had become an important item in the Com- 
pany's trade catalogue. Modern gewgaws, imita- 
tion gems and " pinchbeck " jewelry caught the 
native fancy, and for years the harvest was a rich 
one. Other European nations grew envious, and 
finally in the "fifties "of the present or the past 
century — whichever it may be — to protect her trade 
interests, England had to abandon the ostensible 
guise of a commercial company in India, and take 
over the domination avowedly governmental. So 
India was officially annexed. Meanwhile, the prin- 
ciple of control has not changed an iota. England 
is in India for revenue only. 

"Yes," you say, "but she believes in open mar- 
kets." 




178 POUNDS, SHILLINGS AND PENCE. 

True, yet practice is not always coincident with 
principle. 

England, despite the attempted inroads upon her 
commerce with India, still has to her .credit seventy- 
five per cent, of the imports into the Empire, and 
with the proportion of the exports from the Empire 
which it has the monopoly of producing, her actual 
per centage of the whole is as large as that of her 
imports. On the face of the figures, England's 
balance of trade with India is eighteen millions of 
dollars, but as aside from tea, rice and a few other 
commodities for consumption, practically the whole 
of the one hundred and twenty-five millions of im- 
ports from India are in one way or another re- 
exported by England, her real balance is one of far 
greater volume than would appear at a cursory 
glance. 

Through their various channels and spheres of 
influence, governmental, commercial and financial, 
the British annually handle something like a billion 
— a thousand millions — of dollars in connection 
with Indian affairs. It is not actually such sum in 



POUNDS, SHII^UNGS AND PENCE. 1 79 

reality, but with the coming in and the going out 
there are the double opportunities for turning the 
penny into the shilling, and the shilling into the 
pound, which the Englishman knows so well how 
to accomplish. 

In retail lines, where the native is the buyer, the 
Hindu vender has the advantage of the European, 
in that his running expenses being much less, he 
can, and does, sell at a lower rate of profit. He has 
no store to fit up with show cases, clerk hire to pay 
or rent either, as carrying his stock on his back, he 
squats down wherever he pleases, spreads his goods 
in tempting array about him and is ready for busi- 
ness. He, as well as the native of larger capital, 
who gets under cover and has a bazaar — ^possibly 
attaining to a full-fledged shop, with cases, coun- 
ters and doors — follow the old-time notion of 
trade, that when a customer wishes an unusual quan- 
tity of one commodity he wants it badly, and hence 
will pay the more. There is no advertising among 
them of job lots at retail, at wholesale prices. It 
would mean everything but bargains. 



l8o POUNDS, SHILLINGS AND PENGE. 

In the native mercantile classes are to be found 
some of the wealthiest and most progressive men in 
India, quick to grasp Western modern methods, from 
influencing prices through favorable or unfavorable 
reports, as the case may be, to cornering the market 
on grain or anything else which may enable the 
opportunity. 

Staples, carried in stock for an extended period 
by the European merchants, become perfect curi- 
osities in price-tagging. Wholly independent of 
first cost and the original margin of profit added, 
if exchange goes down a fraction, the price goes up. 
A falling value of the rupee, as it continues, 
increases the figures on the goods, until often the 
article itself is scarcely large enough to afford space 
for them all. The last down stay, in spite of a 
rising value of exchange, and when making pur- 
chases, if you don't look sharp, you get nipped. 

The system of exchange in vogue is one of those 
things which the sensible traveller in India will 
speedily give up all hope of comprehending. He 
will accept what is told him and smile as he receives 



POUNDS, SHILLINGS AND PENCK. l8l 

or expends, and smile, and smile again, as the expla- 
nations vary in accounting for tlie Englisli edict 
closing the Indian mint and the protracted absence 
of a monetary standard. He may look pleasant, as 
it is of but temporary importance to him. 

With the permanent resident, the civil-service 
man, government official, army officer, railway em- 
ployee, or other, it is no amusing matter to have 
to accept pay in rupees at half their face value, and 
for maintenance of family in England convert them, 
two for one, into coin or paper passing current 
at home. To overcome the discontent arising from 
this concatenation of things pecuniary, in the 
ranks of the higher class of public servants, some 
of them have their salaries computed on the basis 
of fifty per cent, in rupees, and the balance in Eng- 
lish gold. 

As it stands, the monetary situation is a peculiar 
one. The rupee, as its value is quoted in the L^on- 
don market, and upon which the exchange is based, 
is accepted at an advance of twenty-five per cent, 
upon its intrinsic worth. That is to say, when 



l82 POUNDS, SHILUNGS AND PENCE. 

quoted, say, at one and four pence, thirty-two cents 
in our money, the silver in it is actually worth but 
one shilling, or twenty-four cents. The twenty-five 
per centum addition appears to be wholly arbitrary 
to protect somebody or something, and as London 
takes the silver piece, which is neither a coin or a 
token, at the price she puts upon it the world does, 
and that settles it. The varying value of exchange, 
it should be understood, is based upon the fluctu- 
ating price of bullion, with the twenty-five per cent, 
tacked on for whatever reason the individual finan- 
cier may assign. I think I have heard as many as 
a dozen different ones. 

The majority of the office-holders and civil-service 
employees have to struggle along as best they can 
until the happy day comes, when, with pension as- 
sured, they can go to the home country and, as they 
say, live like white men. 



XXV. 
THE SWIRL AND SWASH. 

Caste, that subject upon which so many writers 
have expended voluminously, and my avoidance of 
which up to this time has, I presume, excited sur- 
prise, is, like other features of India life, exagger- 
ated beyond real importance. It is replete with 
aspects unique to us, and which, in nowise fitting 
into our interchanging relations, they easily incite 
interest. We wonder how such as is told can be, 
without disturbing and disorganizing everything 
having to do with man's intercourse with man. 
We forget our manner of life is as enigmatical to 
the Hindu as that of the Hindu is to us. His 
development being upon radically different founda- 
tion, and knowing nothing whatever of us, how 
could we expect him to follow on our lines ? 

"From example, as afforded by the English 




.g^-LiT 



1 84 THE SWIRI. AND SWASH. 

population in their midst," you say. You would 
appreciate the irony of this could you but spend 
some time in the Empire and have the entree 
into European circles. Caste ! The Hindu, in- 
tense as is his antipathy to anything or everything 
approaching a violation of the tradition he has 
inherited, and which his religion has fostered until 
it is principle actuating him, has not the half of the 
worry and vexation of spirit in the constant fear of 
infracture which characterizes the European. 

The English take naturally to fetichism in class 
distinction. They are born and bred to it and yield 
to the phantasmagoria of India life distinguished by 
a fanaticism which discounts the Hindu himself. 
The latter is so imbued with the sense of his 
superiority from birth that its maintenance is easy, 
nay, more, graceful and dignified. 

On the other hand, it is primarily the place that 
makes the man with the European, the rank of 
the position filled by him, in the reflected glory of 
which his wife and children shine in proportionate 
magnitude. This has its complex ramifications in 



THE SWIRI. AND SWASH. 185 

the effect upon those whose blood, independent of 
position held, entitles them to homage. The 
younger sons of dukes, earls and others in the 
peerage, with wives who are daughters of duch- 
esses, countesses and baronesses, as may be im- 
agined, have no fancy for back seats, even though 
for the time being these male scions of nobility 
hold down chairs in the offices of the civil service. 

Money as well is difficult to properly caste, and 
in India, as elsewhere, no matter the avenue of its 
accumulation, seeks and secures recognition in the 
adjustment of affairs social, official and otherwise. 

Centering in Government House, therefrom radi- 
ate all the circles which keep things in an incessant 
swirl and swash. The inner, the closer to the 
throne ; the outer, the farther away from it. They 
no more come together in their encirclement than 
oil mixes with water, and the Hindu who is told 
Christianity means the brotherhood of man, cannot 
be censured for retorting, "When it is evidenced 
by Christians I will believe it, and not before." 

The very missionaries who invite him to accept 



1 86 THE SWIRL AND SWASH. 

what they have to offer, extend it on the end of a 
paddle, as it were, when in themselves they per- 
sonify the adherence to caste. 

A noted missionary writer says : "To the credit 
of the Hindu caste system, it must be said that, on 
the whole, it is on the side of health and cleanli- 
ness. It has, for many centuries, acted as an inex- 
pensive system of police, political as well as moral, 
keeping its members in check and restricting them 
as no modern system could. It has not been an 
unmixed evil, and I cannot agree with those who 
see nothing whatever of good in it, either in the 
past or present.'^ Dr. Rowe remarks, " While ad- 
mitting that caste is a barrier to the spread of 
Christianity, we hold also that it is a wholesome 
barrier, and one which the infant Christian Church 
in India can illy afford to spare." 

He should know, as he has been there long 
enough to ascertain, as likewise to typify caste in 
himself, as hear this from him : " We may love 
the Hindu as our neighbor, in accordance with the 
Gospel injunction, without being fond of him as a 



THE SWIRL AND SWASH. 1 87 

social companion. We may even yearn over his 
spiritual condition, and be willing to sacrifice our 
means and comfort for his welfare without feeling 
any desire to be intimately associated with him 
personally." 

It is interesting to juxtapose this view of the 
Hindu by the Christian, with the Hindu's view of 
the Christian, as voiced by Dr. Bllinwood, Secretary 
of the Presbyterian Board of Foreign Missions, 
who says : " While the European speculates and 
writes of superstition, of heathenism, etc., etc., the 
native Hindu is equally emphatic in the condemna- 
tion of what he calls the swinish indulgence of the 
Anglo-Saxon, his beer drinking and his gluttony, 
his craze for money and material power, his disgust 
for philosophy and all intelligent aspirations, his 
half-savage love for the chase and destruction of 
animal life. The charge of idolatry is thrown back 
in our idolatry of pelf, which they claim, eclipses 
every other thought and impulse, leads to dis- 
honorable over-reaching and manifold crime, and 
sinks noble ethics to the low level of self-interest." 



XXVI. 



THE "PEG/ 




■l^!^ 



There is much more truth than poetry in the 
foregoing, a more vivid picture of the real than of 
the imaginary. Indulgence to excess in spirituous 
drinks, with its companion, oblivion in opium, is 
evinced in the consumption of both as shown in the 
governmental revenue, the two monopolies yielding 
twelve per cent, of the whole. The Mohammedans 
with all manner of wines and liquors strictly for- 
bidden by their religion, have been kept fairly free 
from the Christian influences encouraging their use. 
There are exceptions, as indicated in the increase 
of the State's receipts from some of the more 
densely populated Moslem centres, where contact 
with European civilization has induced emulation. 
But compared to the inroads made upon the Hindus, 
those among the others are not as yet striking. 



THE "PHG." 189 

Hinduism is notable for having preserved its fol- 
lowers through centuries of its existence free, gen- 
erally speaking, from the indulgences which have 
only marked them since the advent of the Christian 
nation now controlling their destinies. The intro- 
duction of modern civilization, through the meth- 
ods adopted by the representatives of that nation, 
has worked an immorality — this comprehending all 
the forms by which humanity falls — which was 
unknown, and therefore unprepared for. There 
were sin, shame and moral disaster before, but com- 
paratively exceptional. The natural, not the culti- 
vated tendency. 

England is no worse than other countries in 
making the tax on liquor a source of revenue. But 
in carrying this tax — and that on opium — to the 
extent she has in India, it is not on the principle that 
such are luxuries and should be made to bear a larger 
proportionate share of the State's expenditure than 
the necessities ; rather that they are necessities, and 
the wider spread their consumption the greater the 
State's resources. 



190 THE **PEG." 

Compelling the use at the point of the bayonet, 
or at the cannon's mouth, is not unknown of Eng- 
land, and if such Christianity has not been apparent 
in India, something insuring the same end has. 

The letting to natives of annual privileges for 
the sale, based upon the quantity sold, so that the 
larger the profit to the government the greater that 
of the vender ; the rivalry instituted in the bidding 
or submitting of tenders and other devices to stim- 
ulate the extension of use among the masses, is 
shown to be effective in the increased returns. Had 
the Hindus the power in themselves to close up the 
grog shops and opium dens multiplying around and 
about them, and invading even their villages remote 
from direct European contact, there is no question 
they would do so and in the most effectual manner. 
They are helpless. Both institutions are of direct 
governmental establishing, the mainstays of gov- 
ernmental monopolies, which yield largely to gov- 
ernmental revenue, and are therefore fixtures em- 
blematic of Christian civilization almost anything 
other than unique in such exhibition. 



THE "PEG." 191 

Brandy and soda used to be the daily milk of the 
Englishman in India. Now it is whiskey and soda. 
Beer is the side beverage, and Stout is never afar 
o£F. Wine flows freely at dinners, and on stated 
occasions champagne is, as a matter of course, in 
evidence. The *' peg " — whiskey and soda — is the 
all-around standby. Morning, noon and night 
the soda corks pop, and the good old Scotch — it is 
all old and all good, or so labeled at least — fills a 
quarter of the pint glass always within reach. 

One might as well try to get away from the heat 
as from whiskey and soda, and, so far as can be 
noted, there are not many engaged in the attempt. 
I have myself more than once had a ''split" with 
a jolly curate. This is the division of a bottle of 
soda and the regular portion of whiskey between 
two friends just before parting, and, as a rule, after 
having had so many standard '' pegs " as to be unable 
to hold another. The imports of liquor, presuma- 
bly in large proportion for European use, as very 
much of that consumed by the natives is of local 
concoction — or greatly adulterated foreign stuff — 



192 THE " PEG." 

exceed six and a half millions of dollars annually. 

In all my travelling about India, and the many 
times the hospitality of home life has been enjoyed 
of a Sunday, there is no remembrance of it ever 
having been suggested, I should accompany any one 
to church. No conversation can be recalled with 
the church as the topic, but I can bring to mind 
the cooling hours of Sunday evenings, when the 
serenity of the enjoyment of our "pegs" was not 
at all disturbed by the dropping in of reverend 
friend or friends of host and hostess. To the con- 
trary, the native butler would at once see to it 
that there was no monopoly of the good things 
of this life. 

I have thus sketched more in the outline than in 
detail, glimpses of life typical of the whole. There 
is nothing to impress the Hindu with the advan- 
tages of Christianity over Hinduism, and, so far as 
can be judged, not likely to be until we ourselves 
become, what we say he must to be saved — con- 
verted. The stranger in India, at once assimilates 
with his kind, and the larger the number from 



THE "peg." 193 

Christian lands the Hindu has the opportunity of 
observing, the firmer his conviction as to our being 
all alike ; and I guess he is about right. He goes 
on with his gods and we with ours. 

In the distant contemplation of what is best for 
India, there is apt to be a conclusion which is 
reached on the reasoning of how the controlling 
conditions should be, instead of as they are. The 
best of people, with the highest convictions as to 
right and wrong, make the mistake which some- 
times entails serious results, when they strenuously 
maintain the lessening of the influences of an evil, 
is a condonement of the evil itself. 

There is one existent in India, as every other place 
on earth, which no power yet exerted anywhere has 
succeeded in eradicating. To those taking the 
position that such as succumb must pay the penalty, 
and refuse to consider a single if, on the ground of 
its compromising with the Devil, I have nothing 
to say other than I respect their right to their own 
opinion. Nevertheless, I can contrast the situation 
as to the present condition of the British Army in 



194 

India, with what it was before the}^ compelled the 
repeal of the regulation pertaining to the native 
women contingent in each camp. Despite the out- 
cry against the enactment, it was, with the rigid 
medical and sanitary supervision provided for and 
carried out, maintained in force for a period suffi- 
cient to demonstrate its efficacy. 

For years the standard of health had not been so 
good as was shown in the number of men reported 
for duty, as well as those free from all disease. Then 
came the repeal and the restoration of the old order 
of things, when the checking of that which could 
not be done away with was unheeded. It is not 
long ago the Medical Commission, sent to India to 
investigate the physical condition of the British 
soldiers there, made the report which created so 
extended an impression. 

Those who remember it, by putting two and two 
together, will believe it was not wholly the fear of 
Russia which led to so small a levy being made 
upon the home troops in India to meet the emer- 
gency in Africa. 



XXVII. 
WOMANKIND AND HER WAYS. 

Only the higher caste Hindu women are secluded. 
Among these it is largely voluntary, practically 
wholly so, as one in the exclusiveness of the Zenena 
— the woman's apartments — regards herself very 
much as the *' four hundred " do in our own coun- 
try. There is style and "blue blooded" elegance 
in being away from the gaze of common folk. A 
feeling among the favored few which can readily 
be appreciated here. 

The Hindu aristocrat — there are many of them 
of a lineage traceable to a period antedating the 
oldest of England's proudest families — has his 
home designed and constructed in accordance with 
plans providing for the daily life of the two sexes 
being passed separately if desired. The women, 
secure in their privacy, move about their apartments 




196 WOMANKIND AND HER WAYS. 

with perfect freedom. It is a mistake to think, 
because they do not do exactly as our own women, 
they are miserable, and continually pine for liberty. 
They assuredly do nothing of the sort. On the con- 
trary, they have as good times as any women, and 
frequently better than many. " How is it possible 
they can, when so restricted ? " I think I hear some 
sceptical woman ask, and " How can it be possible 
the European woman entertains any self-respect 
when she makes herself so common ? " the Hindu 
woman responds for me. It is the point of view 
again. 

There is much in the Hindu woman's position 
against which our women would rebel, and so would 
they, I presume, had their training and environment 
been different. For instance, she never speaks to 
her husband in public, and always sees that he has 
been served his meals before her own' are partaken 
of, which are not eaten with him upon any occasion. 
She does not address him by his given name, and 
not only is he her lord and master in the fullest re- 
ligious sense, as also by law, but it is her pride that he 



WOMANKIND AND HBR WAYS. 1 97 

is both. A transformation to the manners and cus- 
toms, we observe, would be as distasteful to the 
women as it would be to the men. The latter are far 
removed from unkindness to the women, or neglect- 
ful of the attentions they prize so highly. Inordi- 
nately fond of jewelry, and given to elegance of at- 
tire, they are gratified in these respects to an extent 
in no wise comparing unfavorably with the practice 
in European countries. There are exceptions and 
instances of neglect, abuse and cruelty among the 
Hindus as with all other people. Not so widely, or 
at times so sensationally ventilated as in England or 
here ; divorce being unknown, and hence the pro- 
ceedings frequently enlivening our public prints are 
not of the social topics. A clever Hindu woman 
is a power, as is always the bright and sagacious of 
the gentler sex, and, in her way, has a correspond- 
ing influence with mankind. 

A large majority of the females are as free to 
come and go as the males, the one following in the 
footsteps of the other practically at will ; this being 
true relative to religious as to other things. Women 




198 WOMANKIND AND HBR WAYS. 

do not become priests, but they do now and then 
vow themselves to the life of the Joginee, or dev- 
otee, and all of them within the temple, as outside 
of it, are conspicuous in observing the prescribed 
rites. Contrary to the general opinion there is 
little of the exclusion of women from the ordinary 
walks of life, its hopes and pleasures. Often there 
will be liberal draughts made upon the ancient 
Hindu literature, and notably the " Laws of 
Manu" — of origin prior to the Christian era — to 
substantiate a European writer's statements, as to the 
condition of the Hindu women. There would be 
almost as much justification for a Hindu to draw 
upon the Old Testament for the proof of claims as 
to that of European women. 

The ordinary Hindu woman is, we would surely 
think, upon terms of a great deal too much equality 
with men. There are no distinctions as to her field 
of effort. The track force on the Darjeeling Rail- 
way, the gangs of employees who keep the road bed 
in repair, caring for the stone ballasting as also for 
the embankments and cuts, are composed of females, 



WOMANKIND AND HER WAYS. 1 99 

most of them young girls. Likewise at Darjeeling, 
which is upon a steep mountain side just over from 
the main range of the Himalayas, the masons, ever 
in demand to build or keep in repair the stone 
walls, without which, house or garden enclosure 
would go sliding into the deep valley, are almost 
entirely confined to the so-called weaker sex. I 
have seen a mother and her daughters carrying and 
laying the stone in the wall, while the father, with 
a babe on one arm, was mixing the mortar with the 
other. It was a sensible procedure, too, inasmuch 
as the mother having the unweaned child would 
be unable from its importunities to pursue her labor. 
The work is not done by the day, as with us, that is 
on daily pay, but by contract taken by the family 
and' executed by it without regard to sex. 

The railway station at Darjeeling, although 8,000 
feet above sea level, is still a thousand or more feet 
below the leading hotel, enroute to which and car- 
rying only myself, I had to stop and rest a dozen 
times. Reaching the lofty verandah, and awed by 
the indescribable majesty of Kinchinjunga opposite 



200 WOMANKIND AND HER WAYS. 

me, and towering upward 28,000 feet, I dropped my 
eyes to whence I had come and saw what at first I 
conld not quite comprehend. A serpentine wind- 
ing in and out of the pathway up the precipitous 
hillside, of seven or eight oblong objects, black and 
banded, and apparently without means of locomo- 
tion, yet steadily ascending. Nearer they came, 
and I recognized our trunks, all of which had 
been made of special size — the fullest limit in 
the dimensions coming within steamship cabin 
regulations. Then I descried a pair of tiny bare 
and brown legs underneath each trunk, but for a 
little time naught else, and the effect was decidedly 
curious. Soon the whole line wound its way to the 
verandah where I was standing. Each of the 
heavy trunks had been brought up without resting, 
by a single girl, and almost, if not really, the 
smallest of the lot had the trunk containing the 
photographic material, plates and appurtenances, 
the whole weighing three hundred pounds. Filled 
with commiseration for the little thing, who seemed 
hardly in her teens, I told Dave to ask if she were 



WOMANKIND AND HER WAYS. 



20I 



not entirely exhausted, and glad to know the severe 
strain was over. Her eyes brightening and her 
form at once straightening to its utmost impressi- 
bility, as she fondly hoped, the quick reply was : 
" Tell Sahib if he will give me another half rupee " 
— eighteen cents in our money — " I will carry it 
down and back again without stopping." 

Corrugated iron is largely used by Europeans for 
roofing, and comes to India in sheets, the weight of 
which is indicated upon each. Once, when puffing 
up a mountain roadway in company with my host 
who spoke Hindustani, and who was taking me to 
his club, we were passed by a woman who no sooner 
was in advance, than feet and ankles were all I 
could see of her. Otherwise she was wholly hid- 
den by the huge sheets of stone-color-painted iron 
upon her back. Struck with amazement that a 
woman could walk away from us up so sharp an 
incline, with such a mass of metal weighing her 
down, I asked my friend to stop her, which he did. 
Investigation proved her load to be one of three 
hundred and eighty pounds. It was held in place 





203 WOMANKIND AND HER WAYS. 

Upon the back by a band which passed across the 
forehead of the carrier, this being the manner in 
which our trunks were transported, as are all heavy 
loads. 

Girls carry rocks, stones and dirt in open-bag 
shape stretches of jute upon the back, the forehead 
piece of the fabric being of the whole. 

A large proportion, half, if not more, of the labor- 
ers on the rolls of the Department of Public Works, 
and employed all over India, are women and girls, 
who are every whit as efficient as the men and boys 
in making reservoirs, digging canals, repaving road- 
ways and building railways. 

*' Shocking !'' you think? You could not make 
them believe it, and there would be a commotion 
and general striking for woman's rights, the equal 
of which India or any other country has never 
known, were there an attempt made to substitute 
our theories for their practice. 

Their earnings are kept upon the person until 
they become veritable perambulating savings banks. 
Necks, arms, wrists and ankles, adorned with strings 



WOMANKIND AND HER WAYS. 203 

of silver rupees and half rupees, betoken the physi- 
cal ability and at the same time the independence 
of the wearers. These dowries, thus visible and not 
conjectured, add, as we may appreciate from our 
own way of looking at things, to the general femi- 
nine attractiveness. 

Of the Hindu women Dr. Rowe says : ''As 
girls they are shy and retiring, as mothers they are 
devoted to their children, and as wives the}^ are 
helpful, and true." And he continues : "The foul- 
est slander ever conceived against any part of the 
human family is the intimation, too often seen in 
English prints, that Hindu women, as a class, are 
devoid of virtue and unfaithful to their husbands. 
Here in India, as elsewhere, the women are more 
faithful to the marriage tie than the men." 



XXVIII. 



THE TIE THAT BINDS. 




No one, save those who have been among them, 
and only then but comparatively, can imagine the 
intensity with which the Hindu parents look for- 
ward to the marriage of a son ; and to have a son 
means more than we possibly can comprehend. It 
is to the Hindu what the very hope of regeneration 
is to the devout Christian. It is the son upon 
whom salvation after death devolves, in that it is 
the son who performs the rites, without the assur- 
ance of which the dying Hindu would be in misery 
beyond words to portray. Superstition, or what- 
ever you may call it, the Hindu is born with it 
ingrained. So are others, and Christians, too, the 
difference being in the shape taken. 

Hardly is the Hindu boy out of babyhood, before 
plans are well in hand for his future, and all cen- 



THE TIE THAT BINDS. 205 

tering in his marriage. Intercourse with Euro- 
peans and the influences of modern civilization, 
have undoubtedly tended to the retention of faith 
in child marriage — or betrothal would possibly 
convey the better understanding. Although irrev- 
ocably bound together, there is no actual com- 
panionship until the boy has reached manhood and 
the girl developed into womanhood. Such stage is, 
respectively, much earlier than with us, being, as to 
the female, seldom later than the twelfth year, 
and the male, the fifteenth or thereabouts. The 
early formalities are gone through with, to secure 
the larger protection of the girl from the chances 
of evil, which the wider the European sway, the 
greater has become its extent. She having been 
wedded as a child is assured the more zealous care 
by those who know what any untoward act would 
mean throughout life. 

The girl herself soon comes to appreciate this, 
and the Hindu argument in favor of these, to us 
most premature and senseless ceremonies, has af- 
firmations hard to gainsay when for the time being 



2o6 THE "TIE THAT BINDS. 

you can get out of your own environment and into 
his. 

Nothing could make me, more than any other, 
brought up as I have been, see the justice or possi- 
ble kindness to the two whose earthly existence is 
immutably fixed without either having a word to 
say about it. But the Hindu has not been taught 
the same way. Perhaps we do practice means to 
similar end, when the marriages of convenience are 
arranged, but if the parties to them are not always 
strictly like Barkis '^ willin," they appear to be, and 
this, of course, makes all the difference in the world. 

If you think the educated Hindu is uninformed 
as to the goings on in countries where civilization 
is asserted to be the loftiest, you are in error. 
Before he is half through proving the match-mak- 
ing principles governing where titles and wealth 
are to be protected, the latter enhanced, or an 
exchange made of nobility for riches, you will beat 
a retreat in claiming such to be exceptional. This 
won't do, for he will prove to you that among the 
masses of his own people, child marriages are very 



THE TIE THAT BINDS. 



207 



far from the rule, and tlie young woman, as well as 
the young man, may have considerable to say as to 
life partnership. It is true the female has been 
added to the male go-between in marriage matters 
among the Hindus, and that they, as well as other 
old-time institutions of the village, still survive. 
Nevertheless, with the march of time, there come 
adaptations to suit the altering conditions, and one 
does not always keep right in his suppositions based 
upon the traditions of even so ancient a people as 
the Hindus. 

The early marriage obligation is attended with 
varying expense, the street parade in which the 
contracting parties participate being elaborated, 
more or less, as the purse-strings of the parents 
may be loosened. The little ones, in their brilliant 
finery and perched upon gorgeously caparisoned 
horses, appear like dolls in a spectacular combina- 
tion of the Lilliputian with the heroic — the larger 
the horse the greater the eclat, and the louder the 
noise made by the alleged musicians the more tony 
the affair as a whole. All the world is made to 




208 THE TIE THAT BINDS. 

know that tlie fortunes of friendly houses have 
been united, and the pomp and display prove how 
good a thing has thus been accomplished. 

If the notion suggests itself that with a change 
of words, and not necessarily of the sense, this 
would fit nearer home, to be present at the final 
consummation would insure the realization that it 
makes precious little difference who has the money, 
Hindu or other, it is ever consequential when those 
in interest are of the elite. If the high con- 
tracting parties do not get a column or two in the 
way of a send-off in the newspapers, and if the 
guests do not have the opportunity of furnishing 
a full description of their costumes, with especial 
notation as to the jewels worn, it is not because 
there is lacking the array of either to justify the 
emulation of this popular Christian custom. 

I^et me describe a Hindu bride as she was and 
one typical, with variations to suit the environment, 
of today in princely circles where there is wealth 
galore and blood flowing back to the ark. 

Her bridal dress is in a single piece, the ten or 



THE TIE THAT BINDS. 209 

more yards of whicli constitute the one garment 
of her entire costume. Of a lovely shade of green, 
contrasting perfectly with her rich brown skin, it 
is embroidered the entire length in harmonizing 
hues, with here and there delicate tracing of gold and 
silver threads, demarcating points in the general 
design being indicated by miniature diamonds and 
emeralds. This fabric, worth a king's ransom, first 
winds about a waist nature, and not a modiste, 
made ; one section falls in graceful folds below the 
knees and the other is carried over the shoulders 
with a skill evidenced in the matchless manner its 
fullness adjusts itself to the upper part of the body. 
The Venus-like form and carriage of the living, 
pulsating creature is, with no other enhancement, 
the realization of an artist's dream. But from the 
crown of her head to her ruddy toes she is abso- 
lutely dazzling. There are jeweled shapes — but- 
terflies, beetles, wasps and dragon bugs — each on 
spirals and dancing bewilderingly in her luxuriant, 
glossy black hair, seemingly so carelessly held in 
place that a sudden movement would bring it below 



2IO THE TIE THAT BINDS. 

tlie supple hips. From a half dozen places in either 
ear, pendent and set, sparkle gems so brightly it 
would be vain to essay their counting. An emerald 
and pearl studded nose ring pierces one nostril, and 
strands of glorious pearls encircle her perfect neck. 
Amulets of silver, bracelets of gold, her slender 
waist bound by a belting of precious metals and 
centered by a single diamond rivaling the Kohi- 
noor. On every finger a jeweled ring and on every 
toe a golden one. Ankle bands of gold and from 
them dancing bells, with each petal a gem. 

Florid as the pen picture may be regarded, it but 
feebly presents the original, who, coming down to 
the material and prosaic, would, if put upon the 
block and sold, as many people believe the Hindu 
wife is, a slave, have brought a million dollars as 
simply the value of what was upon her person. 
There are yet great stores of gems owned by the 
old Hindu families, jewels beyond computation in 
value, and masses of precious metal, which, were 
they generally known, would excite an avarice diffi- 
cult, it might prove, to hold within bounds. 



THK TIE THAT BINDS. 211 

But the bulk of the Hindu population is poor, 
although not poverty stricken, save when the crops 
fail or a plague ravages. It is to be found at the 
best in the villages, and there, weddings, as all 
other elaborated affairs of which the Oriental is 
fond, become events varying in importance as means 
at command enable. Whatever the standing the 
impulse to make a display is the same, and extrav- 
agance in this direction has kept many a father in 
the money-lender's grip throughout a succeeding 
lifetime. Marriage is a religious duty, and only 
the greatly deformed or hopelessly diseased remain 
single. 

Monogamy is the rule, a plurality of wives being 
rarely known, although among the Brahmins there 
is a special and limited caste who have the privil- 
ege, but it is becoming less availed of each year. Di- 
vorces, as hitherto remarked, are wholly prohibited, 
and for no cause whatever can such be granted. 
Separations may be for grevious offenses. They 
are not frequent, neither the man or the woman 
being permitted to remarry ; while at the same time 




213 THE TIE THAT BINDS. 

the man continues to contribute toward the woman's 
support. If, after seven years married life, no 
children have come to bless a union, a second wife 
may be espoused while the first one is living. 
When steps are taken to utilize this privilege, which 
is not easy to have sanctioned, the first wife is gen- 
erally as anxious as the husband to secure it. 

The young wife, brought to the husband's home, 
takes a subordinate place, and it is not exceptional 
to find three or four generations under a single roof. 
The combined earnings go into a common fund, 
and usually the older of the males is the ^' Karta," 
or head of the family. Next to him in authority 
is the " Grihini," or chief wife, who may be the 
consort of the '' Karta " or his mother. Her pride 
is the home, which is, in truth, her castle, and the 
ceaseless activity she maintains in it, is the training 
which assures her successors being worthy ones. 
Cleanliness and purity are the watchwords of the 
Hindu housewife, applying as forcibly to the person 
as to everything within and without the domestic 
circle. Metal cooking utensils are kept like niir- 



THE TIB THAT BINDS. 213 

rors all the time, and it would appear, whenever 
nothing else can be found to do, everybody bathes 
and changes apparel. This, however, is not an act 
of over-exertion. The female costume which, while 
seeming to the uninitiated to be composed of several 
garments, is, in reality, a single stretch of whatever 
may be the fabric — calico or muslin ordinarily — 
six or seven yards long. The preliminary wrap is 
that encircling the waist, and one end in its folds 
does duty below while the other meets the upper 
demands. Stockings are altogether unused even 
when the costuming is the finest, and shoes are 
very seldom seen. All Hindu women prefer the 
full freedom of the feet, whether adorning them 
with toe rings or not. 

At times, when festive occasions impel to extra 
embellishment, the feet, as well as the face and 
arms, are washed with saffron water, which leaves 
them of a yellowish color. When this is done the 
outer edge of the eyelids are tinted with a solution 
of oil and soot, and the tips of the fingers, together 
with the nails, dyed with a concoction made from 



214 'I'HE TIE THAT BINDS. 

henna leaves, which reddens all it touches. Thus 
the Hindu belle, as her prototype in the fashionable 
circles where civilization is most modern, enhances 
the natural by the addition of the artificial. Not 
wearing so many clothes, or if hardly this exactly — 
being without such variety of accessories as pos- 
sessed by her Christian sister, she has to use the 
more liberally of those at hand. 

On any occasion the wife or mother appearing 
before husband or children without a nose ring and 
a few bangles, would suffer in self-respect, her train- 
ing from childhood, when before the piercing of 
the nostril, she wore a gold or silver button on the 
side of the nose, making the nasal ornament second 
nature to her. Well may the hair of the head be 
said to be the crowning glory of the Hindu woman. 
To her it is the most precious of nature's gifts, and 
in married life to be shorn of any part of it is a 
loss from which she never recovers. The care 
of the long, fine tresses is one of very great personal 
pleasure, and the pride in them is manifest in the 
carriage of her head. 



THE "TIK THAT BINDS. 21 5 

Fraternal affection and filial constancy are 
strongly demonstrated in the Hindu, whose charac- 
teristics in such respect, have ever led him to be 
dutiful and obedient toward his elders, among whom 
none have place in his estimation equalling that of 
the mother. She is a kind of deity to him, the ven- 
eration paid her being akin to that bestowed upon the 
highest of the gods. Indeed every village has its 
mother god, which is reverenced as the symbol of 
all that is holiest in earthly life. Through this 
figuration of the common motherhood oblations 
are offered for those who are about to become moth- 
ers, and to these, as to the family and all centering 
in and about it, this, the guardian saint as our Cath- 
olic friends would say, is the nearest and dearest. 



XXIX. 




A BOY! 

Motherhood is the supreme earthly joy of the 
Hindu woman. From a child she has looked for- 
ward, made sacrifices, performed her religious duties, 
preserved her purity and unceasingly prayed for its 
consummation. It has been the transport of her 
waking, as it has been the blissful vision of her 
sleeping hours, to be the mother of a boy ; to have 
a son who shall grow up to be the delight of both 
parents and perform for them the death rites which 
none but a direct male descendant can in the full 
surety of effectiveness. It is the deep down and 
unutterably solemn sense of the religious aspect of 
the situation, as between the advent of a son and that 
of a daughter, which marks the difference in the 
reception. The one means the realization of the 
sacred hope so long and fondly cherished, the frui- 



A BOY I 217 

tion of gladness to be followed by the joyful par- 
ticipation of relations and friends, the blessings of 
the church and every evidence of those of God as 
well. The other is the deferring of all these and 
another period of alternating hope and fear, of 
anxiety and apprehension. Ours is so totally a 
reverse situation at such times we cannot conceive 
of that of the Hindu ! 

In a passing way we do, perhaps, when in com- 
mon with all the world, we know the heirship to a 
great throne is to be settled, or left as before the 
birth, as the case may be. In Russia, for instance, 
where three times have successive and involuntary 
waves of sympathetic feeling followed the announce- 
ment of another hope deferred. When an Ameri- 
can-born Duchess has a son to inherit a proud title 
there is a conscious elation ; and whenever it is 
known an old family name is not to die out through 
the lack of a son to perpetuate it, there is gratifica- 
tion even among those to whom it is no more than 
were there neither daughter or son. 

Unthinkingly, rather than deliberately, the Bast- 



2i8 A boy! 

ern peoples are misjudged for their avowed prefer- 
ence for sons, and because this is so open and from 
time immemorial been evidenced, there is condem- 
nation which, to say the least, is not always con- 
sistent. Aside from the religious significance and 
importance of the birth of a son — which we are in 
no position to pass upon — there are material results 
in connection with a profusion of daughters which 
affect the human side of the aspect of things with 
the Hindu, as in general such do with all mankind. 
Not only do all girls wed, and thus entail the ex- 
pense of marriage ceremonies, but there must be 
dowries and giving up of possessions, not to speak 
of the disarrangement of household affairs and em- 
ployments through the reduction of the family 
membership. On the other hand, the marriage of 
sons is the source of profit, for in proportion to the 
loss through daughters is the gain from sons. 

Nevertheless, there must be daughters, and there 
are many of them. That their lives are necessarily 
the harsher and their existence' a burden to them 
simply because of being girls, instead of boys, is 



A BOY ! 219 

nonsense. Without them there could be nothing in 
life worth living for, and the Hindu realizes this as 
well as every other man. 

Women are idealized in India as in all lands. Both 
of the great epic poems of the country, which may 
truly be said to have passed into its very religion, 
have their central inspirations in womankind. The 
death of Bhishma in the Mahabharata — one of the 
vital points of the story — is the outcome of his sol- 
emn pledge to never inflict injury upon a woman. 
He refuses to defend himself against Sikhandin 
because he believes the latter to be a woman in dis- 
guise, which, by the way, is subsequently indicated 
not the case. The plot of the Ramayana rests 
upon the promise of a king to his second wife to 
grant her any two boons she may ask. Rama is 
the king's son by his first wife and is the heir to the 
throne. He it is who is asked to be banished for 
fourteen years that the second wife's son shall ascend 
to the place of power. The king demurs, but 
Rama, as his father has made the promise, insists 
that it shall be carried out, and in pursuance leaves 



2aO A BOY ! 

the kingdom and becomes a wanderer. Meantime 
the king dies, and the son of the second wife 
refuses the succession, going instead to seek Rama 
that he may come into possession of his own. 
Rama, however, true to his father's memory, will 
do nothing to dishonor it, and, in complete fulfill- 
ment of the promise made by his sire, remains away 
that the other may govern until the expiration of 
the original period fixed. 

So fervid became the veneration for the charac- 
ter of Rama as delineated, that his deification fol- 
lowed as most natural to a people ever ready to 
behold an incarnation of the attributes of God in 
their apparent manifestation. " Rama!" " Rama!" 
" Victory to Rama!" are the loud and joyful cries 
heard on every hand at festivals and the concours- 
ing of the people generally. The meaning is as 
would be with us were the words, " Jesus !" " Jesus !" 
" Victory to Jesus !" We would be declared religion- 
mad to go through the streets so vociferating, but 
we are not Hindus, who are the most religious of 
people in principle and practice combined. 



A BOY ! 321 

Four months prior to birth is the ceremony of 
the uncooked food — fruits principally — which is 
attended by relatives and friends, and at which 
ceremonial the expectant mother is the central 
figure both as to the material as well as the spiritual 
programme. Two months later the succeeding cer- 
emony of the cooked food transpires, and again 
everything is observed religiously and otherwise 
which is regarded as conducive to the coming 
mother's mental and physical welfare. Comfort, 
kindness and luxury are hers, and, as the time 
comes on apace, the astrologer casts his horoscope, 
the bard recites his poems, the priest gives his ben- 
ediction, and the wife of the village barber, without 
whom nothing could go aright, appears, and there- 
after has sole charge. 

Then the event, a boy ! 

The whole community resounds with the 
acclaims — the barber is sent post-haste to relatives, 
there is a joyful reunion, a great feasting, and the 
young mother is the crowned queen. 

In the upper castes there is severe discipline in 



2}23 A boy! 

the eating and the refraining from bodily exer- 
tion for several days, but in some of the lower 
castes it is common for the wife to go about her 
business the following day as if nothing had 
occurred in which she had borne the leading part. 
But the husband takes to his bed and is there care- 
fully nourished on the best the house affords for a 
week or more. The women really encourage this, 
being wearied with the pampering and unusual 
idleness, and glad enough to get back to their accus- 
tomed vocations. 

With the higher caste people the exactions 
attendant upon the birth of a child have to be most 
carefully respected, as infringements entail ostra- 
cism, the relief from which it is more or less irk- 
some to effect. It is not exactly outcasting, but 
what we would term boycotting, her relatives and 
others remaining away and refusing recognition. 
There are still many little things becoming big ones 
when trifled with, such, for instance, as a married 
woman failing in putting red powder on the part- 
ing of her hair. A mother-in-law cannot eat or 



A boy! 333 

live in the home of her son-in-law before her daugh- 
ter has a child. But with the advent of a boy baby 
there is a marvelous change. 

In ten days he gets a name— two in fact, but one 
of them is kept secret. There is another ceremony, 
for the name given is looked upon as vital, 
religiously, and almost as much so in its bearing 
upon the boy's career. Thanksgiving services, 
with gifts in memory of ancestors, are features of 
the occasion, as also the astrologer's horoscope and 
the feasting. At six or seven years of age the bap- 
tism by the investure of the rosary of beads, and 
often by the branding upon the arm, breast or other 
part of the body, of the wheel-shaped discus and 
conch shell of Vishnu. Golden instruments are 
used, and not infrequently the symbolic impression 
upon the flesh is kept gilded through life. The 
rosary may be a simple string of thirty-two or sixty- 
four dried berries of the Rudvaksha tree, which is 
the type affected by the Sivaites, or one of a hundred 
and eight beads, made from the wood of the Tulasi, 
which the Vishnuites use. Their employment is 



224 A boy! 

practically as the commonly known one, and they 
are generally worn around the neck. 

Now the Guru — the boy's spiritual teacher, his 
religious and often other guide, as he also is usually, 
to all intents and purposes, the family priest — takes 
him in hand and imparts the sacred or "seed" 
text, which is to so influence his whole existence. 
He must not repeat it to any one or refrain from 
its constant repetition to himself. As he receives it 
he is in robes of pure white over a body cleansed 
with the utmost care. It is his consecration corre- 
sponding to our confirmation. 

If of the Brahmin or higher caste, the "twice 
born " or new birth, as we would say, is indicated 
in the sacred thread w^orn over the left shoulder and 
across the body to the right hip, and once put on is 
never to be taken off. It is of three slender strands 
of cotton, each of which is in turn of three finer 
strands lightly twisted into one. White, typifying 
purity, is the color of the whole. The three main 
parts symbolize the Supreme Being as Existence, 
Wisdom and Joy, while the triune of minor parts, 



A BOY ! 



225 



that He has been man in three forms, Creator, Pre- 
server and Disintegrator of all material things ; 
that He pervades three worlds, Earth, Air and 
Heaven, and has revealed His will in three books 
Rig, Yajur and Sama Vedas. This is Sir Monier 
Williams, interpretation, and a most interesting 
one. " No peer of the Realm of Britain is prouder 
of his birth," says Dr. Williams, -'than is the 
poorest Brahmin, and no sovereign values his crown 
more highly than does the high caste man, no mat- 
ter how humble his position, esteem the wearing of 
the sacred thread." 

Meantime, the boy has been through the cere- 
mony of the cutting of the hair, which is a religious 
one, as also is that of the three perforations of each 
ear and the succeeding circumcision. For twelve 
years he may study one of the Vedas, or if to devote 
himself to the church, as we would say, is his pur- 
pose, give such period to each of the three great 
books. In his own literature, there is that appeal- 
ing to him, if studious, requiring a life time to 
master, a philosophy deeper and more resourceful 




326 A BOY ! 

than of any other he knows, classics unsurpassed and 
a history beyond computation to fix its inception. 

^' I am convinced,'' affirms Professor Miiller, in 
discanting upon our own position as to the Hindu 
classics," that, placed as we are in this life, we have 
lessons to learn from the Veda, quite as important 
as the lessons we learn at school from Homer and 
Virgil, and lessons from the Vendanta, quite as 
instructive as the systems of Plato and Spinoza." 
The modern Hindu is a bright and capable student, 
absorbing information with rare facility, and adapt- 
ing himself to the methods of civilization so cleverly 
as to have greatly complicated things in the Empire. 

That the influence in England looking to the 
education of the Hindu should have prevailed, and 
for a time carried everything before it, was charac- 
teristic of the governmental 3delding whenever a 
more or less sentimental feeling manifests itself in 
force. There is a large and influential class in the 
Mother Country stoutly believing in the higher 
education as an infallible panacea for all the evils 
of 'heathenism. On this line operations were con- 



A BOY ! 327 

ducted to the point where a halt was forced — 
there were no more places to put the educated 
Hindu in, save by putting the Englishman out. 
As Cotton says : ''The narrow sphere in which 
alone the educated native finds it possible to move 
is dangerously overcrowded. The exigencies of a 
government by foreigners, to him, exclude his hold- 
ing the higher offices of state. Social prejudices 
prevent his entering other fields, and the discontent 
and restlessness prevailing is of serious aspect." 

The foreign systems of education, with the 
attendant results, cannot be said to have deeply 
impressed the native generally, either Mohamme- 
dan or Hindu. The former prefers his own schools 
and colleges, while the latter, also having many 
educational systems of his own supporting, shows 
an increased adherence to them since the culmi- 
nation of a course in the English or governmental 
institutions has been proven so unsatisfactory in 
material advancement. 

Naturally, too, both incline to religious teach- 
ing in conformity with their faiths and regard 



228 A boy! 

the knowledge of their Scriptures as essential. 
For the lower castes there are primary and 
common schools established throughout the Em- 
pire, local or native, governmental and missionary, 
and by far the better and more practical of the lat- 
ter are the industrial. It is a pity there are not 
more of them. In these, as in the Medical Mis- 
sions, the American missionaries have ever led and 
accomplished inestimable good. At the inception 
of both movements sharp opposition had to be sur- 
mounted, the European missionaries contending 
such efforts were not in line with true missionary 
work. In truth to this day the Americans have 
the field of practical ministration pretty much to 
themselves, it being very hard to get the English- 
man out of his set ways and removed from his tra- 
ditions. 



XXX. 

FACT AND FANCY. 

For so long a period the favorite themes in dwell- 
ing upon the asserted iniquitous practices of the 
Hindus, it will, I have no doubt, appear to some as 
evincing a disposition to palliate and avoid things 
detrimental to them, that so little will be said about 
Satis, or the burning of widows on the funeral pyres 
of their husbands ; and, since its abolishment, the al- 
leged revenge taken upon the widows through cruel 
persecution, ostracism and like course of conduct. 

The Hindus have enough to be charged with, and 
are forced to struggle along under sufficient burdens 
of their own making, without having heaped upon 
them, as a whole, such, which, at the worst, was 
exaggerated beyond measure. 

Europeans now living who can have any personal 
knowledge of the prevalence of widow burning in 




330 FACT AND FANCY. 

India must be nearly, if not quite, a hundred years 
old. It was 1830 when the enactment went into 
effect prohibiting it, and while, it is true, cases did 
occur subsequently, they were relatively few and 
far between, and I have heard it seriously ques- 
tioned in India that there has been a fully authen- 
ticated violation of the law in this respect for a half 
century. I am not ready to state this as a fact, but 
I am prepared to say that in all my inquiries and 
investigations I was unable to find any one who had 
personal knowledge of such immolation, or knew 
who had. I do not believe, from such statistics as 
are obtainable or the information gleaned, that it ever 
reached one per cent, of the women made widows. 
Sir Monier Williams declares : "The Vedic hymns 
contain no allusion to the doctrine of transmigra- 
tion of souls. Nor do they offer any sanction to 
the prohibition of widow marriage, the encourage- 
ment of child marriage, the iron rules of caste or 
the interdiction of foreign travel. Or is there any 
evidence that the personification of the forces of 
nature were represented by images or symbols 



I^ACT AND FANCY. 23 1 

created out of wood or stone." And Bettany adds : 
'' Animals were killed for sacrifice, as well as for 
food, and we find no trace of the objection to eat 
the flesh of cows." 

In their tendency to the elaboration of the Vedic 
books and the reinterpretation of the Manu, the 
Hindus have simply been keeping up with the pro- 
cession in which are all the religious bodies of the 
world. Not one of them is as it was. Christ, no 
more than Mohammed, Buddha or the apostles of 
Hinduism, would, if upon earth and in mortal form, 
know where to find His camp without a guide. As 
a matter of fact, very many of the followers of each 
who have never been off the earth — and are in no 
hurry to be — do not know just where they are, and 
find the signs at the cross-roads woefully confusing. 

Like the distinguished judge. Bishop Whipple 
tells of in the reminiscences of his early days in 
the ministry. Perturbed over having so learned a 
man in the pew before him, Whipple endeavored 
to ascertain something as to the especial belief of 
his famous auditor. " Preach to me as you would to 



232 FACT AND IfANCY. 

my colored stable boy Joe," responded the eminent 
jurist. " I am bewildered and do not know where 
I am amid the theories and expounding of man." 

Hindu women without children may, in times 
past, have been subjected to all the Manu sets forth 
should be visited upon them ; made household 
drudges and confined to a single meal a day, deprived 
of ornaments and pleasures, with life generally made 
miserable. Because this and much more of the 
nature is in the Manu, according to the translation 
and calculation of European students — some of 
whom, when unable to figure out a clause, declare 
it was never constructed to be understood — it does 
not follow the Hindu himself interprets as they do. 
On the contrary, he does as they do, with their own 
religious code, construes to suit his own view of the 
spirit, rather than the letter, of the injunction. 

The shaved heads in the higher caste circles 
denote the widow who, while, as a rule plainly 
attired, indicates no noteworthy deprivation from 
such as her more fortunately wedded sisters enjoy. 
Aside from the absence of the marriage badge, the 



FACT AND FANCY. 233 

childless widow in the lower castes is not distin- 
guishable from other women. At least, so far as 
outward semblance goes, and those who know and 
appreciate the natural tenderness of the Hindu 
women toward all living things, will not believe 
her likely to exercise religious persecution upon a 
sister, grounded solely upon causes over which that 
sister could have no control. 

It appears to have ever been the common charge 
against the Eastern peoples that they destroyed 
their children. The early Christians were not 
exempt from it, the pagans not only bringing it 
against them, but the Christians themselves charg- 
ing each other with the practice. As regards India, 
the stories told have entered so largely into the im- 
pressions conceived of the country that the disa- 
busing of the popular mind on this point is, as the 
attempted disillusion of other old-established im- 
pressions, apparently a work of supererogation. 
However, I quote Dr. Rowe : " It is to be doubted 
whether the sinful practice of infanticide is as rife 
here (India) as in some Western countries." 




XXXL 
THE POINT OF VIEW. 

I gave some time to the investigation of the char- 
acter of worship connected with Sivaism, which 
has been the source of misconception and not a little 
misrepresentation. It is a subject which has been 
rendered more conspicuous in its avoidance by most 
missionary and other writers, than had it been 
taken up and discussed in its general bearings as 
other points in the Hindu belief and practice. To 
say that a thing, simply on its face, is necessarily 
vile is to verify the old adage of evil to him who 
evil thinks. 

The Hindus are not the only people who rever- 
ence the creative. It is common throughout all the 
Eastern countries. Man being the highest form of 
creation, such as is symbolical of his reproduction, 
to so realistic and figurative a people, naturally 



THE POINT OF VIEW. 235 

comes within their pantheonistic spectacularism. 
In other words, that which is the literal portrayal, 
or of form symbolical to the point of suggestive- 
ness, keeping the main thought of devotion in the 
mind, is in full keeping with the fundamental prin- 
ciple governing the outward w^orship of the Hindu. 

To reason one moment that the vital principle of 
the Hindu belief in Creation is duality, proving it 
in the female being invariably associated with the 
male god — husband and wife — and the next 
moment declare the reverence for the visible means 
of unification becoming reproductive, gross and 
sensual, is inconsistent in the extreme. 

The mystery of life, its beginning and its ending 
is still as it was when Adam first beheld Eve. 

Whence came we ? Whither go we ? Who can 
actually demonstrate either ? 

The Hindu worships as his senses reveal. He 
sees that which is apparently the cause, and having 
no further sight, pays homage accordingly. He is 
a literalist, and being such, is not necessarily a 
sensualist. 



236 THE POINT OK VIEW. 

In many books on India, writers speak of the 
" Linga " and of the " Yoni " with perfect freedom, 
rarely quoting either term, and so generously in- 
tersperse both throughout their statements as to 
create confusion regarding the meaning which is 
sought for in vain. 

Most of these authors are so careful to avoid even 
the ordinary significance by which the intelligent 
reader can reach a determination, that I have heard 
the words introduced in conversation upon India 
and applied after a manner which would have been 
indescribably ludicrous had not the ignorance been 
so outrageously dense. Upon more than one oc- 
casion I have been placed in an exceedingly awk- 
ward situation when interrogated, and now by way 
of an explanation which will explain, let me quote 
Sir Monier Williams, almost the only European 
writer of India of whom I know, who makes him- 
self clear, and is fair in his comprehension. He 
says, in part : '' The male principle regarded as a 
generator, and the female principle regarded as an 
eternal energy or capacity, commended itself as in 



THE POINT OF VIEW. 237 

harmony with the phenomena everywhere appear- 
ing in nature. It is symbolized all over India by 
temples dedicated to the male and female organs — 
Linga and Yoni." 

The passion of love is never connected with the 
symbols, and to any one imbued with dualistic con- 
ceptions they are indicative of no improper ideas. 

Those of us who have been abroad — we are many 
— and know of the halls of statuary, the galleries 
of paintings and other centres of art, ancient and 
modern, in the leading European cities, must ap- 
preciate the possibility of looking upon that which, 
perverted in the purpose actuating the portrayal, 
could be made to appear anything but elevating. 
Once more the suggestiveness of the point of view. 

lyook with the Hindu, Das, in upon a service held 
in a Siva temple ; that known as .the Tower of 
Bisheshwar at Benares. 

The chamber is full of the smoke of burning 
incense and very dark, being lighted only by a few 
censers emitting feeble flames, which, however, 
serve to disclose the body of worshipers, all in 



238 THE POINT OF VIEW. 

white, standing in mute adoration at one side, while 
on the other are the white-robed priests, with 
uncovered, shaven heads. A marble trough, or 
basin, the gilded sides of which are about five feet 
either way, is sunken a little below the level of the 
floor, and from its center rises the object of rever- 
ence, the symbol of the worship, a plain, conical 
stone, Masses of flowers and Bilva leaves lie about 
it, and there is a continual pouring of water over 
the polished surface. The priests read texts from 
palm-leafed Sanscrit volumes, repeat prayers and 
intone hymns. The worshipers make obeisance by 
folding the hands and bowing, or by prostrating, 
meanwhile repeating prayers and invoking bless- 
ings. No sermon or address is delivered by the 
officiating priests, but there is an incessant beating 
of gongs and bells attached to the temple. At the 
expiration of half an hour, or thereabout, the priests 
indicate by a sign that the water brought from the 
Ganges by each of the devotees is to be poured 
over the symbol, which is done, and with the offer- 
ings of flowers the service culminates. Presents 



THE POINT OF VIEW. 239 

of food, wearing apparel and money are also made 
to the priests on these occasions, and the worship- 
ers are very largely, often exclusively, women. 

Out of Saktism or Goddess worship — the rev- 
erence of female deities or personations, in the 
viewing of the female as the active energy of all 
things and the source of all beings — there have 
been woven stories, some true and many of them 
not. As in other countries and with all religions, 
the stealing of the cloak of Heaven in which to 
serve the Devil has marked, as it has marred, Hin- 
duism. The many have been judged by the few, 
the exceptional made to appear the general. 

At the best, or rather the worst, the numerical 
strength of the sects using the religion of the Hindu 
as a favoring basis for their practices, has been com- 
paratively insignificant. The scion of the " 400," 
who, to celebrate his renunciation of bachelorhood 
at the swellest restaurant in the city, held an orgie 
the police had to break up, could, with his elite 
companions, be as justly claimed representative 
in -their gross licentiousness of New York Chris- 



240 THE POINT OF VIEW. 

tianity, as to present tlie conduct at a Bombay 
carousal as significant of Hinduism because Hindus 
planned and executed it. The type of procedure 
is very like in both instances. Feasting, drink- 
ing and debauchery, and surely the abandoned 
woman in India can be regarded as no worse than 
the notorious creature in the United States. There 
can yet be found what passes for Saktism in India, 
but to witness it there must be recourse to foreign 
intervention. In other words, the European will 
arrange for the exhibition as of the sights of the 
town, the free use of money there, as everywhere, 
bringing about a prostitution of religious or any 
other rites. 



XXXIL 



A STUDY IN GODS. 



The temples of India, the Hindu centres of wor- 
ship, reverence and devotion, have, as long as we 
have known of the world, been famed in history, 
poetry and romance. Tales of the fabulous wealth, 
the mines of precious metals and stores of priceless 
jewels, have reached ears which refused to believe 
them the half based upon truth ; and oft times 
those who did credit, wondered if, indeed, there 
could be such aggregation of wealth upon earth. 
No matter what the besetting sin, the controlling 
impulse or the actuating incentive of the early 
Hindu, truly it was not personal covetousness. He 
kept not his riches, but gave them with lavish hand 
to the cause of Brahma — his Maker. The temple, 
its altars, its gods and its appurtenances, were the 
first to receive of his gains, and with open and free 




242 A STUDY IN GODS. 

hand lie bestowed upon them the finest, the rarest 
and the best the world produced. 

The Mohammedans were made rich for all time 
with their plunder of the Hindu temples when, 
in the twelfth century, as conquerors, they over- 
ran India — iconoclastic, avaricious and merciless. 
So vast was their booty that silver became a bur- 
den and was thrown away, gold and gems being 
only worthy of retaining. Images of solid gold 
they found everywhere — gods carved from single 
emeralds, rubies and other precious stones ; diamond- 
eyed gods and jewel-studded goddesses ; fabrics for 
god garments interwoven with gems, and temple 
plate in gold and stone-set to a value beyond esti- 
mation. It was a dream to awake and find real- 
ized, maddening to man in his limited strength to 
make off with what was before him. From the 
great temple of Somnauth alone the value of the 
treasure carried away by the Mohammedans was 
upward of sixty millions of dollars. Bach of the 
five large idols found in the temple of Mathura 
was computed to be worth a half million of dol- 



A STUDY IN GODS. 



243 



lars. They were of pure gold, with eyes of mag- 
nificent rubies. The interior of the wondrously 
beautiful Taj Mahal, at Agra, is a mosaic of precious 
gems taken by the Mohammedans from Hindu tem- 
ples and handed down through successive Moslem 
rulers to the one who reared the famous tomb. 
There is yet vast wealth in the temples of the 
Hindus — idols, images, gods and vessels filled and 
covered with jewels. There are molded masses of 
gold and silver, fabrics curiously conceived and 
strangely wrought ; things the world knows but 
little of and cherished beyond life itself by those 
who have the care of them. 

To regard the inanimate as possessed with the 
attributes of the animate is so incomprehensible to 
us as adults that we forget the period of our lives 
when we invested almost any old thing with life. 
The horse with outstretched legs was as real as if 
each were not glued and secured to the rockers, and 
the cane or stick straddled was whipped with all 
the vigor of the realism of its effectiveness in accel- 
erating speed. The soldiers that stood, each upon 




244 ^ STUDY IN GODS. 

its circular peg, were animate in so far as they 
illustrated the fortunes of war ; and the generals 
commanding, when of the size their importance 
merited, were relieved of cocked hat, dress coat, 
sword and, yes, often their trousers and boots, when 
a campaign ending justified a well-earned rest. 
And again, when the trumpet sounded the alarm 
and the drum beat to quarters, how intensely real 
the quickly accomplished uniforming and accou- 
tering of the hero to go forth new 'fields to conquer. 
How many of us to this day, in the delight of 
Santa Claus consummations on Christmas morn, 
are given to getting down on the floor and living 
over again with our happy prototypes the joyous 
abandonment of the real in the imaginary. Where 
is the mother, who, in the endearments, the scolding 
and the coaxing marking the intercourse of her 
replicas in the flesh with their replicas in kid, com- 
position and sawdust, who is not carried back to the 
time when no more real are the chattering young- 
sters to her now, than then were the inanimate 
forms she dressed and undressed, put to bed and 



A STUDY IN GODS. 245 

took out of bed, fed, fussed with and lavished love 
upon. 

No wider is the space of time intervening between 
our childhood days and present adolescence, than 
is the plane of intellectuality and mentality sepa- 
rating us from the Hindu. Compared to our devel- 
opment and maturity of realization he is as a child. 
We used blocks with which to learn to read and to 
build, while now and then did not despise their use 
to fill in with when some toy was missing. It was 
all the same to us whether the shape, size or gen- 
eral aspect was congruous or not. What we 
intended was pictured in mind so vividly we saw it 
whether or no, and the naturalness was made com- 
plete because of its conformity with our own. 

The Hindu who does not regard his idols, im- 
ages, or symbols, as in any manner spiritual or 
possessed of omniscient power, but merely as alle- 
gorical or figurative of one attribute or another 
which he — being in the image of his Creator- 
has, in common with the Divine, extends to the 
representations such consideration as he himself 



246 A STUDY IN GODS. 

would feel the most grateful to receive. In other 
words, his realism toward the higher gods leads 
him* through all the attentions to them which he in 
an exalted position would consider his own due — 
fine raiment, delicacies in the way of food and 
drink, the valet de chambre (personified in the 
attending priest) to robe and unrobe, the hours for 
undisturbed repose and those for receptions, with 
their accompanying homage and ceremonies. 

Viewing the elaborateness and care for every 
detail in the Hindu's humanizing of the inanimate, 
it must be acknowledged it would be inconsistent to 
entertain the belief that when he so palpably attrib- 
utes the finite to his gods he actually considers 
them incarnations of the Infinite. With ceremony 
indicative of approach to a royal bed chamber the 
Brahmin enters the private abode of the god, whose 
reclining is changed to an upright position, the bath 
given, the day substituted for the night robes, fruit 
offered, and later the choicest edibles. During the 
noon hours the god is secluded for the siesta, which 
is followed by the spreading of a luxurious dinner, 



A STUDY IN GODS. 



247 



and were the Hindu to describe his imaginings of 
heavenly life he would point to that of his gods as 
the visual illustration. 

I cannot make fully clear the idea of the Hindu's 
devotion to his "devas," or bright beings, that 
has come to me. There are so many apparent 
contradictions in his position toward them which 
is one moment thoroughly human and the next 
reverential ; treating them as he would wish himself 
treated and, immediately reversing this, make obei- 
sance in seeming recognition of supernal power. 
There is that in some Christian forms of worship 
puzzling to reconcile, save through conceding the 
possibility of ramifications in the working out of 
the points of belief leading to the regarding of such 
detail as essential. One can feel, though he cannot 
always convey comprehension of his especial trend, 
and I dare say this confession is but the voicing of 
the religious state of many of all faiths. 

You laugh at the Hindu for being as an over- 
grown boy with a doll, silly and puerile in conduct- 
ing himself before and toward it as though it were 




248 A STUDY IN GODS. 

alive. Very like, elsewhere, causes no merriment, 
but, on the contrary, is witnessed with solemnity 
and awe. I am not defending the belief, the form 
of devotion, or the religious precepts and practice 
of the Hindus, holding in any part their course of 
conduct as to be emulated. We have a faith which 
in all going to constitute God in man is unique in 
that it is the only one which rounds out and makes 
perfect the breathing image of the Divine Creator. 
Others enable but the toy stage. No more do I 
believe the Heavenly Father will consign to ever- 
lasting torture a child whose life has not gone 
beyond relative infancy, than He will the con- 
fiding Hindu, who has the faith of a child, if not 
the discernment of a man. 

The manufacture of gods is, as may be imagined, 
an important industry in India, and is carried on 
after a manner so prosaic and matter of fact as to 
surprise the tourist who may happen to wander 
into an idol shop and witness the unconcern of the 
Hindu workman in fashioning the deities by us 
supposed to be the most sacred. Of stone, cut by 



A STUDY IN GODS. 249 

masons or carved by embryo sculptors ; wood, 
shaped with drawing knives, or rough hewn and 
then formed by careful tool work ; composition, 
molded, painted and gilded ; iron, steel, brass or 
bronze, cast and burnished — some large, others 
medium size, many small and in great number so 
diminutive as to go into a vest pocket. You pay 
your money and take your choice, and this is lit- 
erally so, no matter who or what you may be. 
Until they are, as we would say, consecrated, put in 
place with the prescribed and long-drawn-out cer- 
emonies, no veneration to speak of attends upon 
them. 

Every Hindu knows of what his gods are made, 
that they are of the earth, earthy. It is ''the 
essence," as we translate his meaning, "the sym- 
bolization," as he himself declares it, of the attri- 
butes of the Almighty, which in the image renders 
it holy. Not precisely this, either, in our interpre- 
tation of holiness, for the Hindu himself, even the 
Brahmin or priest, evinces no particularly reveren- 
tial feeling for the thing itself. Instances have re- 



2 so A STUDY IN GODS. 

peatedlybeen known of gods having had visited upon 
them the treatment a boy extends to a worn-out toy, 
or the city to a statue when its inartistic propor- 
tions or other cause has condemned it to the junk 
shop. Only the other day a gentleman in my 
presence took from each side pocket of his vest a 
miniature god, the pair having done duty on a 
sacred Pipal tree in India for ages. Gods for spe- 
cial occasions are made to order, duly consecrated 
and, when through with, used for kindling wood, 
or thrown into a stream. Gods are what they 
typify for the time they typify, and intrinsically 
have no divinity whatever. 

If the Hindus had pipe organs, they would get 
these into their gods, and thus make holy music 
through them, as they also would with cornets, 
violins, violas, bass drums and cymbals, did they 
know their adaptability for temple worship. As it 
is, they make a terrific noise with such instruments 
as they do have, and which I have no doubt is 
music to them, although I must confess I have in 
India, as in churches here at home, felt that an 



A STUDY IN GODS. 251 

explanatory diagram showing where the melody or 
especial holiness came in would be of great assist- 
ance. 

It makes a wide difference in the use which 
is made of a bell in religious service, as, for 
instance, this view taken by a reverend gentleman : 
" A singular form observed at the Hindu temples is 
the ringing of a bell to attract the notice of a god 
to his worshippers." Wonder what he would say 
if the Hindu were to assume that the bell ringer's 
duty in his own church in England was to call God 
there, rather than the congregation ! 
^The Hindu church has its higher sacerdotal 
caste not dissimilar to the governing class in Chris- 
tian denominations — bishops, as it were, and whose 
duty it is to indoctrinate beliefs and otherwise 
insure such as we also consider essential. At stated 
intervals these " Masters " make the round of their 
dioceses, inspect the work of the regularly officiat- 
ing priests and administer rites, which, as also here, 
can only be done by a bishop. When not so 
engaged they reside in such as would be generally 



a 52 A STUDY IN GODS. 

classed as monasteries, with a temple near by, where 
they grant audiences and otherwise conduct them- 
selves as their prototypes of other faiths. They 
are a self-perpetuating class, the married ones hav- 
ing sons, through them, and those living celibates 
naming their own successors. They are Princes of 
the church in all the designation implies, living in 
state and being greatly venerated. Their influence 
is boundless, and so sanctified in person are they in 
the universal recognition that their touch is held to 
be sacred and their blessing the most precious of 
earthly boons. 



XXXIII. 



MAKING THEM PAY. 



Religious festivals may almost be said to be the 
order of every day life with the Hindu who in one 
way or another appears to be continually in attend- 
ance upon something of the kind. One can scarcely 
board a train in any direction, which is not by far 
the larger part made up of third-class cars filled to 
the utmost capacity with Hindus bound for some 
centre of pilgrimage. Formerly the destination 
was reached on foot or by cart, the distance trav- 
ersed being much less and the number of pilgrims, 
as a whole, no comparison to what it is now, when 
access is made so easy. 

The shrewdness of the Europeans in making the 
third-class rates upon the railways so low and in 
running trains with such frequency is shown in the 
receipts from this source. Without the steady fos- 



254 ' MAKING THEM PAY. 

tering of the pilgrimage and festival tendencies of 
the Hindu lower classes, as well as the inducing 
and promoting of religious celebrations generally, 
there is not a railway in the Empire the revenue of 
which would pay its operating expenses. It would 
mean financial ruin to every one of the lines to dis- 
courage or, in any manner whatsoever attempt, to 
lessen the multiplicity of religious gatherings. 
However the Christian missionary may preach 
against the alleged evil influences and demoraliz- 
ing tendencies of these great assemblages to per- 
petuate the Hindu's fealty to the faith of his 
fathers, it may be depended upon that the Chris- 
tian Government, which guarantees the bonds of 
the railways it does not itself operate, will persist 
in practicing the policy found so efficacious in 
insuring the revenue to meet the obligations. 

So far as the Hindu, or the natives as a whole, 
are concerned, their material condition has not been 
advanced by the construction of railways any more 
than by the perfection of mail facilities and the 
completion of the telegraph system. Aside from the 



MAKING l^HBM PAY. . 355 

earnings of the railways, three-fourths of which come 
from them, they pay the greater part of the annual 
deficit from their operation, of four millions of 
dollars. Were there no railways at all and the 
masses staid at home, confining their pilgrimages 
and festivals to near-by places, no small share of 
the two hundred millions of dollars now going 
annually for the support of railways, post-office and 
telegraph would remain in the hands of the original 
earners of the money — the natives. 

I question if progress, as enforced in India, is 
over beneficial to the natives when practically con- 
centrated upon a single generation. Of course the 
Europeans must have modern facilities, railways, 
mail and telegraph. If the natives pay for them, 
that is what they are there for anyway, and, as an 
Englishman said to me : '* If their money did not 
go for these, it would for something else ; so what's 
the difference?" None, I suppose. 




XXXIV. 
THE HINDU ARCADIA. 

It is still in the primitive and traditional life of 
the village communities the Hindu is seen as he 
is when uncontaminated by European associations 
and influence. Although one sees natives in such 
number in the cities, the bulk of India's population 
is in the rural centres, for the people, as a whole, 
are agriculturists. As Elphinstone, the greatest of 
the historical authorities on India, says: '*The 
village communities are little republics, having 
nearly everything they want within themselves and 
almost independent of any foreign relation. They 
seem to last when nothing else lasts. Dynasty 
after dynasty tumbles down, revolution succeeds 
revolution. Hindu, Pathan, Mogul, Mahratta, 
Sikh, English, all masters in turn, but the village 
community remains the same." " There is an 



THE HINDU ARCADIA. 257 

India of the books," remarks Rowe, *' and there is 
a real India, and so different are the two that the 
student of the one would scarcely recognize the 
other if without a guide he should suddenly find 
himself in a Hindu village." 

Nine-tenths of the tillers of the soil are small 
farmers who hold varying term leases from the 
Zemindars — landed proprietors — and the cultivation 
is by the entire family, with its own stock and 
such primitive implements as may be possessed. 
It has been well said, that if the half of the money 
spent after famines compelled its disbursement had 
been previously devoted by the Government to the 
encouragement of modern cultivation, there would 
have been a saving effected of the larger part of the 
other half. Yes, and were the policy pursued of 
stimulating the establishing of manufacturing 
plants to induce the general use of agricultural 
implements, by enabling the furnishing of them at 
prices which could be paid, another bulwark against 
possible distress and death would be insured. 

England is not an agricultural country, Russia is, 



258 



THE HINDU ARCADIA. 




and the latter would have comprehended India's 
need and advanced the material welfare of the 
native as the former never has. So would she have 
likewise grasped the religious situation, and there 
would have been to-day a thousand converts to the 
Greek Church where there is one to the Established 
Church. It is the Russian — not the English — 
method in the colonization of Eastern peoples 
which should be studied. Rank heresy I know, 
but it will not be so characterized later on when 
the sentimental gives way to the practical view of 
existing conditions. 

Between the Zemindars who own the land, the 
Government, which exacts from the tenants upon 
it upwards of one-fourth the entire public revenue 
received from all sources, and the tax gatherers, 
whose share annually aggregates into the millions 
of dollars, the farmer himself has, literally, a hard 
row to hoe. More fearful of the government of- 
ficial than of his landlord, the latter and the money 
lender as well, are regarded as good friends com- 
pared to the dreaded outsider, against whom many 



THE HINDU ARCADIA. 259 

are the conspiracies to outwit. Farmers of means, 
to all outward appearances, are as hard driven to 
make ends meet as the poorest, and even the 
Zemindars themselves view with forebodings the 
presence of Europeans. 

In general, the land owners are kindly disposed 
and more or less lenient with their tenants ; tend 
much toward religious observances and are the 
foremost in alms giving. To divide the income in 
four parts is in accordance with the teaching of 
Hinduism. One for the support of parents, one 
for the current expenses, one for religious purposes 
— offerings and alms — and the remaining one for the 
education of sons. Incomes, large or small, thus 
apportioned, balance the average life of the Hindu, 
so that all are cared for and the village community 
becomes as one great family. It knows no laws 
for the poor, or almshouses ; neither workhouses 
or vagrant restrictions ; nor infirmaries, asylums or 
reformatories, and hardly any provision to speak of 
for the incarceration of law breakers. There is an 
Arcadian simplicity about the Hindu village, which 



260 THE HINDU ARCADIA. 

even within its confines and noting the placidity 
and evenness of life, the man from the centres of 
modern civilization can hardly bring himself to 
believe is real. All is not ideal, but much of it is. 

The money-lender, catching on to the scheme of 
" corners " from the tips he has had from Christian 
sources, has, with the speculator in "futures," who 
also has learned a thing or two, formed combina- 
tions for controlling " the visible supply," and every 
now and then when the farmer or the consumer 
wants what must be had, the price is fixed by the 
"operators" who have all in sight and as much 
more as they can tie up and keep out of the market. 
The " lamb " is fleeced in India as everywhere else 
where the civilization of Christian communities 
is illustrated in perfecting schemes for quadrupling 
profits on man's necessities. 

The fostering of liquor and the opium habits 
by Governmental sanction and inducement to in- 
troduce them, has also tended to a disturbance of 
the even tenor of the village ways. Still, outwardly 
and to the casual observer, little or no change is to 



THE HINDU ARCADIA. 261 

be noted. The barber, the doctor, the reader and 
other old timers continue. The former is still the 
indispensable individual, without whom the good 
Hindu can hardly be born, married or die. Re- 
ligious duties his, from the one end to the other of 
human existence, and practically no rites can be 
celebrated or observed in which he does not figure. 
The doctor, with an inherited, and throughout 
life demonstrated, horror of touching the dead, and 
who would not stick a pin into a fly to save himself, 
is naturally not very conversant with the human 
frame. Generally speaking, his practice is crude 
in the extreme, although in some diseases, asthma, 
dysentery and the like, his prescriptions have been 
found curative where European physicians have 
declared the cases beyond hope. The doctors are 
good Samaritans, inasmuch as their services are 
given as a religious duty whether paid for or not. 

Beyond the wordy warfare, which at times the 
head men— those who constitute the village 
council— have to enforce their authority to stop, 
there is not much wrangling or disputation 



262 THE HINDU ARCADIA. 

among the people. Naturally quiet and disposed 
to be peaceful, it requires a serious provocation to 
cause one Hindu to strike another, and the shedding 
of blood in any manner whatever is the gravest of re- 
ligious offenses. Blphinstone states : " No set of peo- 
ple among the Hindus are so depraved as the dregs of 
our own great towns. Including the Thugs and Da- 
coits, the mass of crime is far less in ratio in India 
than in England." Rowe declares that in all his 
experience in India he never knew or heard of a 
fist fight between Hindus, '' who are ever the most 
peaceful of people, and a hundred times more patient 
than a European." Warren Hastings said of them : 
"They are the most susceptible in gratitude for 
kindness shown them, and less prompted to ven- 
geance for wrongs inflicted than any people on the 
face of the earth." Bishop Hecker, in the same 
strain, says : " The Hindus are more easily affected 
by kindness and attention to their wants than any 
people with whom I ever met." 



XXXV. 



ALL WAITING. 



It is with no purpose of special pleading, or in 
the thought of constituting myself a defender of 
the Hindu, I say what I have and quote others 
whose lives and experience with him entitles their 
opinions to consideration. There must be some- 
thing wrong somewhere when a people have been 
so misjudged as have the Hindus. An observer 
cannot believe otherwise, and, whatever may have 
been my opinion of English colonization methods 
before I went to India, it is pretty well established 
now. Conclusions need not be predicated upon it 
by those who, as Dr. Rowe says, "only know the 
India of the books." They can go there and see 
for themselves. 

The evening prayer from the Talmud reads: 

u I thank Thee that Thou hast given me my por- 



M 



264 ALI. WAITING. 

tion among those who have a seat in the Beth 
Midrath, and that Thou hast not cast my lot 
among those who sit in the corner. I early rise 
and they early rise. I rise to the service of the 
law, they to vanity. I labor, and they also labor, 
but I labor and receive a recompense ; they labor, 
but receive nothing. I hasten and they also hasten, 
but I hasten in the direction of the world to come ; 
they hasten toward the pit of destruction." 

The Jews yet await their Messiah, and the Hindus 
as well believe in the coming of the final incarna- 
tion of Brahma, the Kalki Avator — God upon 
earth — to redeem it. He is to appear at the end of 
the Kali age, "when the world," as Bettany 
explains, "has become utterly wicked, and He 
will be seen in the sky on a white horse wielding 
a drawn sword for the destruction of the wicked 
and the restoration of the world to purity." The 
Jewish corresponding idea of the coming of their 
Messiah embraces, according to Farver, " the entire 
rebuilding of the sacred city of Jerusalem, its rais- 
ing to a height of nine miles and extension from 



AI.I. WAITING. 265 

Joppa to Damascus. It will be as large as Pales- 
tine and Palestine as large as the world — its win- 
dows and gates of precious stones, its walls of silver 
and gold, and the jewels strewn in its streets every 
Jew free to gather." 

" It was construed," the same authority states, 
" that St. John had given Christians the assurance 
that the days were coming when vines would have 
ten thousand branches, each branch ten thousand 
twigs, each twig ten thousand shoots, each shoot 
ten thousand clusters, and each cluster ten thou- 
sand grapes, and when any Saint was about to pick 
one of these clusters another would cry out ^ Take 
me, I am the better cluster.' " 

The world would come to an end, Julius Afri- 
canus declared — and the Christian Church indorsed 
the prophecy — in its six thousandth year. This, on 
the calculation that 5,531 years of the period had 
elapsed when Jesus was born. According to it our 
overtime to date foots up some 1,431 years. 

The Hindus are quite generally exercised in mind 
over the impression that the finale of the Kali age 



266 ALI. WAITING. 

is rapidly approaching. There is a growing convic- 
tion among them that the closing incarnation of 
Vishnu is at hand, and Brahma, through Him, will 
bring to pass what we call the millenium. 

One cannot blame the "civilized" Hindu, from 
what he knows and sees, for believing the zenith of 
wickedness has been reached. It may so seem to 
him, but his vision is a very limited one compared 
to ours, and we know it has not been. 



XXXVI. 

PRAYTIME AND PI.AYTIMK. 

However, I am not going to moralize and will go 
back to the Hindu village life, where there appears, 
in its naturalness, its serenity and its universal 
brotherhood, less demand for Messiahs than almost 
any place on earth. 

The outside world has so little in common with 
it that even the missionaries, at times, fail to 
appreciate the atmosphere of simple confidence per- 
vading and place themselves in a position where 
they nullify every subsequent effort they can make 
to gain the Hindu's confidence. For example, a 
distinguished representative of the Church of Eng- 
land, a dignitary priding himself upon his adher- 
ence to the true faith — which his was, of course — 
one day, in putting a bunch of native school boys 
through their p's and q'S, determined to give them 




368 PRAYTIMK AND PLAYTIME. 

an object lesson not to be forgotten. Taking as 
his cue the belief of the Hindus in God's incarna- 
tion in Vishnu, and, in the latter form reincarnating 
in the shape of animals, as set forth in the flood 
and other traditions of Hinduism, the stately 
bishop, drawing himself up to commanding height, 
sneeringly inquired : 

*' Can any boy tell me whether it is likely that 
God's spirit would associate itself with a snail ? " 

The expression of the big man's face was too 
majestic and suppositive of superior knowledge for 
the silence to be at once broken, but finally a little 
fellow, old for his years, spoke up and said : "I 
think He might condescend to do so if any useful 
purpose were to be served thereby for the good of 
His creatures." An ominous lull, and then the 
angry retort. 

*' You think as a fool ! " 

It is said of Rajah Roy, that on being shown 
a picture of the Saviour, he declared the artist had 
represented falsely in giving Him a European 
countenance, forgetting that Jesus was an Oriental. 



PRAYTIME AND PI.AYTIME. 269 

Continuing, Roy further intimated that the error 
of the European missionaries in bringing an Anglo- 
Saxon Christ to India was not their only one, 
inasmuch as " harmonizing with the Eastern origin 
of Christianity, the Christian Scriptures glow 
throughout with Oriental coloring.'' 

The homage the Hindu pays to the rising sun 
every morning of his life is not worship in the 
sense we would mean, but a recognition of the 
goodness of God in granting its vivifying essence 
another day. Of like nature of thanksgiving is 
the daily acknowledgement to the fire god seen in 
the Hindu household, and throughout the range of 
the domestic and village deifications there is the 
manifestation of the same spirit of devotional re- 
ciprocation for material blessings bestowed. 

We, outwardly at the least, confine ourselves to 
the notification of the President when thanks- 
giving to the lyord for favors received will be in 
order, and fill ourselves, instead of the churches, as 
evidence of recognition. 

** The extraordinary accounts in many books on 



270 PRAYTIME AND PI.AYTIMF. 

India," says Dr. Rowe, " would be as surprising to 
the young Hindu as they are to the young Ameri- 
can." One would suppose from them that Hindu 
life was but little removed from the most extreme 
Calvinistic view of human existence. I^ife, life 
everywhere, and none to enjoy, thus to paraphrase 
the well-known " Water, water everywhere, and nor 
any drop to drink." In reality, quite the reverse is 
the fact, and there is almost no end of enjoyment 
found in the many amusements and sports, which 
are the rule and not the exception. Jugglery, the 
astounding nature of which the natives vie with 
the Europeans in attempting to solve ; fireworks, 
dancing girls, wrestling, acrobatic feats and the 
" Bhats," — elocutionists we would designate them — 
who recite poems, read legends and tell stories, the 
Hindus being veritable children in the delight they 
find in the wildest flights of fancy. There are 
also puppet shows, mimicry and kite flying which 
would set the average American boy almost wild, 
so skillfully is it done, particularly the contests 
so frequently brought about high in the air by the 



PRAYTIME AND PI.AYTIME. 27 1 

dexterous manipulation of the leading strings. 

The intercourse between the people, despite the 
caste adherence, is kindly and considerate, there 
being a dignity maintained which, while gracious 
in the higher castes, is never absent. The strength 
of the hold their religion has upon them is shown 
in the ignoring of caste upon occasions when before 
their God, the brotherhood of man is the first prin- 
ciple of their faith in practice as in theory. The 
best place in the temple, and the first seat at the 
table, are not for the richest or proudest, but in the 
presence of Brahma all are equal. To extend 
water and bread with the hand, which in the ever}^ 
day life of the village would sooner be thrust in the 
fire than outstretched to a low caste man, is, in the 
high or middle caste man, an evidence of belief in 
the faith he professes, which we cannot appreciate 
to its fullest significance. 

Occasionally friction ensues between the Hindus 
and their Mohammedan neighbors and swells to 
proportions of serious import. Out of differences 
in religious belief there grow animosities in India 



372 



PRAYTIMB AND PLAYTIME. 




as elsewhere, and those between the Hindus and 
the followers of Mohammed — ^faiths so diametrically 
opposite — reach the culmination of bitterness, when 
festivals coincide. The Mohammedan dates being 
movable and those of the Hindu fixed, there cannot 
be an avoidance in sometimes striking together. 
The situation as to the processions become as has 
not been unknown to us in the heat of presidential 
election campaigns. Opposing forces meet, the one 
will not give way for the other, and there is a row. 
Incidental features, such as the sprinkling of the 
blood of swine on the walls of a Mohammedan 
Mosque, with the counter deadly insult of smearing 
the face of a Hindu temple with beef fat, add to 
the fury of the flame of discord. 

Once the principle involved in these desecrations 
was made the common bond of unity between Mos- 
lem and Hindu. The Englishman, with his charac- 
teristic disregard of the religious fealty of the 
native — Hindu or Mohammedan — used both lard 
and suet, the product of the hog and of the cow, on 
the cartridges forwarded to India for the new rifle 



PRAVriME AND PI.AYTIMK. 373 

with which the native, as well as the British troops 
had been armed. Old soldiers will remember the 
use of such cartridges in our own time, the grease 
being added to facilitate the passage of the ball 
through the rifle barrel, as also to keep the latter 
from fouling when the discharges were frequent. 
The plea that the terrible mutiny which followed 
the issuing of this ammunition to the native 
troops was the culmination of a conspiracy, rather 
than being brought about by the heedlessness of the 
Army authorities, is not sustained by the facts. 
More than one writer has emphasized the unten-_ 
able position taken in so presenting details as to 
make them appear the Hindu and Mohammedan 
could combine through other than the excitement 
of a religious frenzy. It was the touching them 
on the raw — the one alike with the other — that 
made the Hindu forget all the Mohammedan had 
done in depriving him of his heritage, and brought 
them shoulder to shoulder against the common 
enemy. The lesson was an awful one to both sides. 




XXXVIL 
AND THEN! 

Yama, the God of the Departed, is thus inter- 
preted in one of the Upanishads as translated by 
Miiller — " The future never rises before the eye of 
a careless child, deluded by the delusions of wealth. 
This is the world he thinks ; there is no other. 
But He, the Highest Person who wakes in us while 
we are asleep, shaping one lovely sight after another. 
He indeed is called the light ; He is called Brahma ; 
He also is called the Immortal. All worlds are 
founded upon it and no one goes beyond. This is 
That. There is One Eternal Thinker, thinking 
non-eternal thoughts ; He, though One, fulfills the 
desires of many. The wise who perceive Him 
within their self, to them belong eternal life, eter- 
nal peace ; He cannot be reached by speech, by 
mind or by eye ; He cannot be apprehended except 



AND THEN ! 275 

by him who says He is. When all the fetters of 
the heart here on earth are broken, when all that 
binds us to this life is undone, then the mortal 
becomes immortal." 

Death, as birth, is attended with ceremonials of 
an elaborate and protracted character, and the 
remembrance of having lived is often of a period 
afterward as extended as was the life itself. With 
us there is rarely more than a two-days' interval 
between demise and interment, and the funeral is 
the final ceremony. We observe no distinction 
in the position of the relatives beyond the gen- 
eral rule of the nearest being first, or are there 
functions sacred beyond description especially pre- 
scribed for certain ones. White, not black, is the 
mourning color with the Hindu. The disposition 
of the remains ensues with him in even shorter 
period than with us, the cremation following almost 
immediately after death. Many die on the shores 
of the Ganges, the sacred river, or some arm of it, 
and when such cannot be reached another stream 
su£&ces, water being universally venerated and the 



276 AND then! 

floating away of one's ashes on its surface the ideal 
ending of all remaining of the body. 

Having always favored cremation as the wisest 
and most rational manner of disposing of the body, 
as I saw it practised in India I was struck with the 
simplicity and inexpensiveness of the proceeding. 
When one understands the meaning of what may be 
otherwise inexplicable to him, and appreciates that 
his own death functions would be as strange to the 
Hindu as those of the latter are to him, there is an 
absence of the disposition to view the cremation of 
a body by the shores of the Ganges as a circus or a 
show of any description. Indeed there are no such 
features connected with it ; to the contrary, the 
thing is about as sensibly and thoroughly performed 
as could be imagined. 

The body wrapped in white muslin differs only as 
to color in general appearance from the other logs. 
The pile, which is usually the square of the length 
of the corpse, is built up three or three and a half 
feet from the ground, the body being included in 
the construction as if one of the midway timbers. 



AND THEN ! 



277 



Smaller wood, which has been rosined, or possibly 
saturated with mineral oil, is below, and when the 
torch is applied by the son of the deceased, the 
whole is so quickly enveloped in flames and smoke 
that there is little if anything more to be seen than 
the burning of an ordinary pile of wood. 

"What of the odor?'' you ask. On the wind- 
ward side none to mention. Sandal wood and 
other means of lessening possible offensiveness are 
used by the higher castes. 

It is soon over and you pass on to witness another, 
which you find precisely as the first. At all, there 
are but the small number of immediate relatives, 
foremost among them the son, who has lighted the 
pyre, and will remain or return later and most care- 
fully and reverently gather the ashes. 

Prior to the performance of these last rites he has 
carefully bathed and arrayed himself in pure white 
garments, never before worn, and which are de- 
stroyed as unclean following the termination of his 
duties. There is, as a matter of course, the Brah- 
min or priest, of the lowest rank, to officiate, and 




278 AND THEN ! 

from whom the son receives the torch or blazing 
piece of wood, which answers for such. However 
illustrious the Hindu may have been, whatever his 
deeds, his rank, or his possessions, the body is at 
once consigned to the flames, and his ashes, if not 
literally thrown to the wind, are subject to it as the 
water of the sacred river is rippled or tossed. 

If the last act to the dead is of itself simple, 
and relatively inexpensive to perform, such which 
follow are by no means so. The '' Shraddha," in- 
terpreted " respect for the dead," is a period of cere- 
mony and intermingling of relatives and friends 
lasting three days, and in the carrying out can be 
made to cost a very large sum of money. As much 
as a half million of dollars have been so expended 
in memory of a mother by a devoted son. A 
modern rich family will spend a hundred thousand 
dollars on a Shraddha, and almost any high class 
Hindu would feel meanly over a less expense than 
from $3,000 to $10,000 in testifying to his affection 
and respect. Costly presents are among the feat- 
ures, as also are elaborate feasts and liberal alms- 



AND THEN ! 279 

giving. All are remembered, from the highest to 
the lowest, and it is made a season of the widest 
brotherhood. Every detail is of religious portent 
and every observance of a sacred nature. Gar- 
lands of freshly culled flowers are the final presents, 
each guest going away with one about his neck, and 
all of the assemblage, the onlookers as well as the 
attendants and servants, none but are remembered 
with the fragrant blossoms. 

For another week the period of mourning con- 
tinues, and during which time the entire family 
has to undergo exactions as to seclusion and fast- 
ing, these being markedly severe on the son, who 
must not wear anything except a white cloth 
about his loins and subsist each day upon a single 
meal of vegetables and fruit, with a little milk in 
the evening. On the thirtieth day after death 
offerings of food, sweetmeats and sugared delicacies 
are made to the spirit of the deceased and those of 
the ancestors who have preceded him in solving the 
mystery which one day comes the turn of all. 

Some of the religious ceremonies in their signifi- 



28o AND THKN ! 

cance are not unlike those conducted in Christian 
lands on similar occasions. Pilgrimages are made 
to holy places by the living, that the dead may be 
further blessed through such act of devotion, and 
All Saints' Day in principle comes often in the 
Hindu's practice of what he preaches. In Hinduism 
there could be no Rip Van Winkle to suffuse the 
eyes with the pathos of his : " Are we, then, so soon 
forgot !" 



XXXVIII. 
BY THEIR FRUIT YE KNOW. 

I have entered largely into the life of the Hindu, 
its daily details, his customs, his habits and his 
characteristics, for with all his religion has directly 
to do. He is as Nature made him, or was, until 
the modernization of civilization brought about the 
changes now, in part at the least, distinguishing him. 

Whether they are for the better or for the worse 
may be as the point of view tends to convince. 
Example (that most potent of teachers and power 
accruing of influences) the Hindu has had, still has 
and will continue to have in the exponents of an 
alien religion who shape his earthly destinies while 
their confreres " of the cloth " would his heavenly 
as welL Grave the responsibilities of both in what 
they typify : '' For of thorns men do not gather 
figs, nor of a bramble bush gather they grapes." 



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